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GRK 1404:  Self-organised Materials for Optoelectronics

Subject Area Polymer Research
Term from 2006 to 2015
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 20067851
 
Final Report Year 2016

Final Report Abstract

The concept of investigating (organic) materials for optoelectronics under the special focus of self-organization proved to be very successful for this IRTG, because it combines research on materials with high importance for modern society (optical displays (LCD or OLED), plastic electronics or organic photovoltaics) with fundamental questions of basic natural sciences. It was therefore at first (i) ideally suited for interdisciplinary research work on the academic level between different groups and it made (ii) the graduated PhD students attractive for companies. The Korean–German cooperation added to this aspect as German companies are investing in the far-east and Korean companies look for customers in Germany. The organization of this joint Korean-German research and training program relied mostly on 2 bilateral meetings each year, one in Korea and one in Germany (over all 18 meetings), which allowed academic exchange, reports about advances in research, tutorials for the students but also time for discussion and to have a closer look at the advancement of the participating students. It was complemented by exchange trips of the faculty. In this context one of the young docents from the University of Mainz (Prof. P. Theato) acted for 4 years as part time faculty at the SNU (WCU-program), while Prof. Char from SNU in Seoul became a Gutenberg Forschungskolleg-Fellow of the University of Mainz, and got thus officially associated with it. As result of this IRTG about 3 times 12 students from Mainz participated in this program as stipend holder plus some additional students paid from other resources, bringing it to a total of 57 PhD students from Mainz. Most of them performed a research stay at SNU or Hannam University. And despite the stay in Korea they finalized their PhD in 36 months or only a bit longer. On the other side 39 Korean students participated actively in the IRTG and 19 performed a research stay in Mainz (University or MPI-P). As a specialty of this IRTG it was possible to establish a “Joint PhD degree” between the Fachbereich 09 in Mainz and the College of Natural Sciences at Seoul National University. This Joint degree requires (i) the enrollment as PhD student at both places, (ii) a research stay as part of the PhD of at least 6 months at the other place, (iii) credits from both universities and (iv) a participation of a professor of the other university in the PhD awarding process. So far 26 PhD students from Mainz got a joint degree (or are expecting it by early spring 2016), whereas 6 Korean students got a Joint Degree or similar (for the Korean Engineering students full equivalency is not possible as Mainz does not give a PhD in engineering). In addition 6 students expect to obtain a Joint Degree when finalizing their theses later in 2016. As a result of our joint research work within the IRTG we have published 42 joint Korean–German papers, which are embedded in – over all – 272 papers as result of the research work of the students actively participating in the IRTG. Much of this work was not done within one group, but cooperatively among different groups of the IRTG. To compile the work of the IRTG and to make the IRTG more visible we organized two special volumes of the journal Macromolecular Rapid Communications (i) 30 (14) (2009) and (ii) 36 (11) (2015) both with the title “Self organized materials for optoelectronics”. In addition we participated in 4 international meetings with a broader scope and organized special sessions there.

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