SFB 755:  Nanoscale Photonic Imaging

• Subject Area: Physics ; Biology ; Chemistry ; Mathematics
• Term: from 2007 to 2019
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 28586557

Biological materials as well as many modern materials derive their unique features from a high degree of complexity. Complexity in structure is reflected in complex dynamics, and dynamics is essential for function, in particular for living systems. This Collaborative Research Centre aims at a quantitative understanding of macromolecular structure, kinetics and dynamics in systems ranging from synthetic complex fluids, reconstituted biomolecular model systems, to living cells.
Because objects of nanometer size need to be resolved and followed in their motions, break-through experimental capabilities need to be developed to reach these goals. A concerted research programme on photonic imaging, ranging from x-ray, EUV, UV, to visible and infrared light is proposed for microscopy and spectroscopy. Key challenges include the development of x-ray optics for imaging, the development of fluorescence microscopy breaking the conventional diffraction limit, the mathematical optimisation of optical data processing methods and object reconstruction and the development of laser-based methods to measure forces and stresses.
Scientific questions that will be addressed include: What are the mechanisms of bubble dynamics in aqueous solution far from equilibrium? What are the ultra-fast dynamics of photo-induced phase transitions in soft matter? What are the dynamics of and in multicomponent biological membranes? How do amyloid proteins aggregate? How does stress develop in the cell cytoskeleton and in the extracellular matrix? How do such stresses contribute to tissue dynamics? Is it possible to derive the structure and dynamics of a single supramolecular complexe, and single molecule from single pulse exposures of the free electron x-ray laser?

• DFG Programme: Collaborative Research Centres

Completed projects

• A01 - isoSTED microscopy within tissue (Project Heads Egner, Alexander ;  Hell, Stefan W. )
• A02 - Nanoparticle tracking with heterodyne spectroscopy (Project Heads Ulbrich, Rainer G. ;  Wenderoth, Martin )
• A03 - High-resolution stress-field mapping in fiber networks and cells (Project Heads Rehfeldt, Florian ;  Schmidt, Christoph Friedrich ;  Wardetzky, Max )
• A04 - Statistical multi-scale analysis for photonic imaging: from modeling to algorithms (Project Heads Luke, David Russell ;  Munk, Axel )
• A05 - Nanoscale dynamics of proteins and their interaction (Project Heads Enderlein, Jörg ;  Grubmüller, Helmut )
• A06 - Statistical reconstruction methods for time varying nanoscale imaging problems (Project Heads Egner, Alexander ;  Munk, Axel )
• A07 - Statistical inference for molecules: How many, when and where? (Project Heads Hell, Stefan W. ;  Munk, Axel )
• B01 - Imaging the self assembly of matrix proteins by scanning x-ray micro- and nanodiffraction (Project Heads Herminghaus, Stephan ;  Pfohl, Thomas )
• B02 - Kinetics, intermediates, and mechanisms of the aggregation of amyloid protein systems (Project Heads Abel, Bernd ;  Schollmeyer, Hauke )
• B03 - Ultrafast dynamics of chemical reactions investigated by femtosecond x-ray pulses (Project Head Techert, Simone )
• B04 - Biomolecular structures from few photons single molecule x-ray diffraction data (Project Heads Groenhof, Gerrit ;  Grubmüller, Helmut )
• B05 - X-Ray spectromicroscopy of biomolecular matter in the environment (Project Head Thieme, Jürgen )
• B07 - Dynamics of intermediate filament self-assembly (Project Head Köster, Sarah )
• B08 - Formation of stress fibers in adult stem cells (Project Heads Huckemann, Stephan ;  Krivobokova, Tatyana ;  Rehfeldt, Florian )
• B10 - Structure-dynamics-function in photoswitchable proteins (Project Heads Jakobs, Stefan ;  Techert, Simone )
• B11 - Nanoscale observations of membrane dynamics (Project Heads Eggeling, Christian ;  Hell, Stefan W. )
• B12 - Imaging of surfactant stabilized nanostructures using microfluids (Project Heads Baret, Jean-Christophe ;  Herminghaus, Stephan )
• C01 - X-ray holo-tomography: less constraints and higher dimensions! (Project Head Salditt, Tim )
• C02 - Inverse scattering problems without phase (Project Heads Hohage, Thorsten ;  Luke, David Russell )
• C03 - X-Ray Optics using Foams in Microsystems (Project Heads Bahr, Christian ;  Herminghaus, Stephan ;  Seemann, Ralf )
• C04 - Soft x-ray spectro-microscopy with a lab-scale source (Project Heads Krebs, Hans-Ulrich ;  Mann, Klaus R. )
• C05 - Optimized focussing of hard x-ray beams by nanaostructures (Project Head Hartmann, Alexander )
• C06 - Nanoscale mass-spectrometric imaging (Project Heads Abel, Bernd ;  Mann, Klaus R. )
• C08 - Coherent FEL and high-harmonic pulses and their wavefronts (Project Heads Mann, Klaus R. ;  Ropers, Claus )
• C09 - Inverse problems with Poisson data (Project Head Hohage, Thorsten )
• C10 - Coherent x-ray imaging of cells with femtosecond x-ray pulses (Project Heads Köster, Sarah ;  Salditt, Tim )
• C11 - Fresnel wavelets for coherent diffractive imaging (Project Head Plonka-Hoch, Gerlind )
• C12 - Hard x-ray imaging by multilayer zone plates (Project Heads Krebs, Hans-Ulrich ;  Osterhoff, Markus )
• INF - Data Infrastructure (Project Heads Osterhoff, Markus ;  Yahyapour, Ramin )
• Z01 - Central service project lithography facility (Project Head Salditt, Tim )
• Z02 - central tasks (Project Heads Köster, Sarah ;  Salditt, Tim )

• Applicant Institution: Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
• Participating Institution: Gesellschaft für wissenschaftliche Datenverarbeitung mbH Göttingen; Institut für Nanophotonik Göttingen e.V. (IFNANO); Max-Planck-Institut für biophysikalische Chemie; (Karl-Friedrich-Bonhoeffer-Institut) (aufgelöst)
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Tim Salditt