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GRK 1524:  Self-Assembled Soft-Matter Nanostructures at Interfaces

Subject Area Physical Chemistry
Term from 2009 to 2018
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 65143814
 
Final Report Year 2018

Final Report Abstract

IRTG 1524 was set up to educate and train young researchers in a stimulating and competitive area of soft matter science. Specifically, IRTG 1524 focused on the underlying mechanisms by which interfaces drive the self-assembly of soft matter into nanostructured entities and how these entities can be stabilized by interfaces once they have formed. From an improved understanding of these general topics it will become possible in the future to fabricate novel materials and devices with specific functionalities through directed or controlled self-assembly. To contribute to such an improved insight into the role of interfaces for the self-assembly process, scientists from Berlin and Potsdam with backgrounds in soft matter, nanostructured systems, and systems with interfaces cooperated with scientists from North Carolina in the framework of IRTG 1524 and a similar coordinated program (MRSEC) on the US side. Members of the entire group have been chosen because of their complementary expertise. In the German scientific team, scientists were coming from the fundamental natural sciences such as Physical and Theoretical Chemistry and Experimental and Theoretical Physics. The US team contributed complementary expertise in more applied disciplines such as Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Materials Sciences, and related fields. Throughout its existence IRTG 1524 operated as a tightly interwoven scientific network. In research this was achieved, inter alia, by focusing on similar types of soft matter systems (amphiphiles and lipids, polymers and polyelectrolytes, proteins, liquid crystals). The network structure was also sustained through personal meetings of all its members (doctoral researchers and project leaders) at annual meetings where the location alternated between the US and Germany. As a general rule, the scientific program during the annual meetings comprised talks by doctoral researchers but also left enough room for discussions between German and US project leaders together with their doctoral researchers. German doctoral researchers spent a mandatory period of six month in their US partner laboratory. During this time German project leaders generally visited their US partners. Similar visits of US doctoral researchers to the laboratory of their German partners also took place. Through the composition of its entire team of (US and German) project leaders, IRTG 1524 succeeded in providing expertise in a wealth of experimental and theoretical techniques. This richness was a clear added value for the high quality of research and teaching within IRTG 1524. Moreover, it was also a benefit in the scientific education and training of doctoral researchers who could be exposed to diverse and complementary methods to address their specific scientific problems. In IRTG 1524 research was organized in three project areas, each with 4–6 thematically coherent projects. The first of these project areas dealt with the influence of planar surfaces on the self-assembly of soft matter, including patterned or chemically modified surfaces, and slits between parallel surfaces. In the second project area the impact of substrate curvature on soft-matter self-assembly was studied, which included surfaces of convex curvature (microand nanoparticles) and concave curvature (tubular nanopores). Projects of the third project area were dealing with the complementary question of how the functionality and structure of biomembranes is affected by the interaction with nanoparticles and proteins. To tackle the ambitious and challenging topics in research within IRTG 1524, it was necessary to combine experimental with theoretical approaches. Similar questions were addressed experimentally and theoretically in each of the three project areas and across the boundaries of the project areas. The balanced number of theorists and experimentalists and their close collaboration on related problems was a unique feature of IRTG 1524 in research as well as in its qualification concept. The balanced role of theory and experiment was also reflected by the structure of the monthly colloquium of IRTG 1524. Here, usually two speakers were invited: one theorist and one experimentalist. Both the research program and the monthly IRTG colloquium were elements in a broader, diverse, yet focused qualification concept to which doctoral researchers have been exposed. Besides formal lectures and seminars, other elements of the qualification concept included: supervision of research students, active participation in the Research Internship in Science and Engineering (RISE) program of Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) through writing project proposals and supervision of undergraduate students from the UK, the US, and Canada; language courses and courses in key skills such as “Good scientific practice” and “Scientific writing” were other elements. In addition, IRTG 1524 organized two schools for its US and German doctoral researchers where internationally leading scientists gave short series of lectures on topics from their fields of expertise. Through all these activities, IRTG 1524 provided a stimulating albeit challenging environment for doctoral researchers to earn their doctorate in a relatively short time.

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