Welcome to the research group of Patrick Huber at Hamburg University of Technology, Germany
Our research group at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) engages in fundamental experimental research in condensed-matter physics and on novel functional materials. We profit from the vivid and inspiring Natural and Materials Science environment of the Hamburg metropolitan area, encompassing Hamburg University (UHH), the Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht for Coastal and Materials Research (HZG), the European X-Ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) and the Deutsche Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY). We are member of the Centre for Advanced Materials (ZHM Hamburg) and of the Collaborative Research Initiative SFB 986 “Tailor-Made Multi-Scale Materials Systems M3”. Our research projects focus on how condensed matter behaves in extreme spatial confinement, most prominently in nanoporous media, and on how to employ this fundamental knowledge for the design of advanced materials.
From a more general, philosophical perspective, we are interested in how complex collective behaviour, such as crystallization of water, self-organization of porous structures and cooperative transport and flow in molecular ensembles, can arise despite the simplicity of the interactions of the single players and their single-molecular motion. So we try to experimentally explore physical aspects of the emergent character of our universe, mainly with respect to the phenomenology on small length scales - between 1 and 100 nanometers, the mesoscopic scale.
Feel invited to read more about our research and teaching activities, to browse our publication list or to get an impression of our group life (group members & alumni and events).
At present our main efforts are directed at an understanding of:
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phase transitions in confined geometries (melting and freezing transitions, crystallization, capillary condensation and capillary sublimation in nanopores) - see also our research projects. |
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the fundamental structural and statistical properties of fluid interfaces , that is the relationship between the thermodynamics, the microscopic structure of these interfaces and their microscopic and macroscopic hydrodynamics - see also our research projects. |
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wetting phenomena in systems dominated by long-range and short-range interactions - see also our research projects. |
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transport phenomena in nano- and mesopores, in particular capillary rise and flow of simple and complex fluids in such geometries (Nanofluidics) - see also our research projects. |
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