Welcome to the KIT Center Materials in Technical and Life Sciences (MaTeLiS)
The challenges of the digital economy of the 21st century in the context of the forth industrial revolution require a constant development of new materials to enable new and challenging applications. The KIT Center Materials in Technical and Life Sciences integrates KIT research groups from the natural sciences, engineering and life sciences, which share a common interest in material research and in the development of new materials. The close cooperation between scientists from different disciplines creates a great potential for leading edge research in material sciences. The technological development requires continuous research into and development of new efficient materials for specific applications.
In the KIT Materials Center, new materials and technologies are developed in a closed chain, from basic research to economic implementation, thanks to the integration of basic and application-oriented research. The development of nanostructured materials as well as the development of environmentally friendly technologies play a special role in the KIT Center. Furthermore, the integration of information-based approaches and modeling in the context of the digitalization of material sciences plays a growing, and increasingly important, role.
Professor Horst Hahn, Director of the Institute of Nanotechnology at KIT, was elected Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) in the USA. He will receive the award in April 2020 at the annual meeting of the NAI in Phoenix, Arizona.
Futher information: NAI press release
Ceremonial award of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Karlsruhe scientist on the Day of German Unity. Professor Britta Nestler researches and teaches at the KIT as well as at the Karlsruhe University of Applied Sciences. She was honoured for her scientific achievements, especially for her pioneering role in combining basic and applied research.
Further information can be found here.
The current issue of lookKIT highlights the topic materials. The KIT Materials Center contributes in various ways, from fundamental research to applications, and integrates research groups from natural, engineering and life sciences that have a common interest in innovative development.
Prof. Dr. Wöll and Prof. Dr. Wenzel, who initiated the project in March 2018, are guest editors. The KIT Special Issue contains a total of 27 publications by scientists from the KIT Center Materials, on a broad range of topics. It is available online since June 27, 2019. Please have a look at following link:
Carbon dioxide is not only a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere leading to global-warming effect, it can also be a useful raw material for chemical reactions. A working group at KIT is using carbon dioxide as a raw material to produce graphene, a technological material which is currently the subject of intense study. The work on this unusual application has been reported in the ChemSusChem journal (DOI: 10.1002/cssc.201901404).
The search for new active substances, their production, characterization, and screening for biological effectiveness are very complex and costly. Scientists of KIT have now succeeded in combining these processes on a chip and, hence, facilitating and accelerating the procedures to produce promising substances. The results are published in Nature Communications (DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-10685-0).
On Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 6:30 PM, scientists from the KIT Materials Center will present their research on new technologies in the Karlsruhe City Hall.
Scientists at the KIThave used granular aluminum (nicknamed grAl) for qubits and have shown that this superconducting material has great potential to overcome the previous limits of quantum hardware.
Work published in the journal Nature Materials (DOI: 10.1038 / s41563-019-0350-3).
The First Prize of the BMBF Validation Award Goes to the ARES “Air-retaining Surfaces” Project on Bionic Ship Coatings that Reduce Friction between Ship Walls and Water. Friction, corrosion, and biofilms are three major problems in shipping. The research project ARES – a collaboration project of KIT and the universities of Bonn and Rostock – studies new types of ship coatings that permanently retain an air layer under water and, thus, help considerably reduce the three problems.
Please have a look here.
Development of a new system for the efficient and precise production of printed micro- and nanostructures from several materials. Integration of a microfluidic chamber for the fluids on smallest space directly into a 3D laser lithography device. Work published in Science Advances 5, 2019.
3D-printed structures, responsive to external stimuli. Instead of temperature, focused light is used as a control signal. For the first time, this allows the targeted control of individual microstructures in a complex, three-dimensional arrangement.The results are published in Nature Communications 10, 2019.
Professor Wolfgang Wernsdorfer of KIT receives the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize 2019 of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Germany’s highest science prize endowed with EUR 2.5 million honors the experimental physicist for his research into electronics, spin physics, and quantum computing.
Industry consumes large quantities of crude oil to produce basic substances for drugs, cosmetics, plastics, or food. However, these processes consume a lot of energy and produce waste. Biological processes with enzymes are far more sustainable. The protein molecules can catalyze various chemical reactions without auxiliary materials or solvents being required. But they are expensive and, hence, have been economically unattractive so far. Researchers of KIT have now developed a new biomaterial that considerably facilitates the use of enzymes. The results are presented in the journal Angewandte Chemie, Oct. 2018.
High-temperature superconductors can transport electrical energy without resistance. Researchers at KIT have carried out high-resolution inelastic x-ray scattering and have found that high uniaxial pressure induces a long-range charge order competing with superconductivity. Their study opens up new insights into the behavior of correlated electrons. The researchers report on it in the journal Science, Nov. 2018.
Polymer pelts made of the finest of fibers are suitable for many different applications, from coatings that adhere well and are easy to remove to highly sensitive biological detectors. Researchers at KIT together with scientists in the United States have now developed a cost-effective process to allow customized polymer nanofibers to grow on a solid substrate through vapor deposition of a liquid crystal layer with reactive molecules. The researchers report on their innovative method in the journal Science, Nov. 2018.
Quantum computers can execute many computation steps in parallel. This will accelerate processing of large data volumes. The microstructure of certain materials and elements of the quantum bits, however, is of crucial importance. Researchers KIT study materials for such multi-functional quantum bits.
“A promising approach to the next generation of quantum computers is based on materials, single systems of which are not larger than an atom and the quantum properties of which can be accessed and controlled optically,” says Professor David Hunger of KIT’s Physikalisches Institut, who coordinates the SQUARE project.
KIT has successfully acquired funding for two clusters of excellence within the Excellence Strategy launched by the federal and state governments. The Excellence Commission has agreed to fund KIT’s proposals in the area of energy research and materials science for a period of seven years.
In future, the following clusters of excellence will be funded at KIT:
3D Designer Materials – 3D Matter Made to Order (Part of the KIT-Centre Materials)
Spokespersons: Professor Martin Wegener (KIT) and Professor Uwe H.F. Bunz (Heidelberg University)
More information: www.3dmattermadetoorder.kit.edu
Energy Storage beyond Lithium – New Concepts for a Sustainable Future (Part of the KIT-Centre Energy)
Spokespersons: Professor Maximilian Fichtner (KIT and Ulm University), Professor Helmut Ehrenberg (KIT), and Professor Axel Groß (Ulm University)
3D printing by direct laser writing enables production of micro-meter-sized structures for many applications, from biomedicine to microelectronics to optical metamaterials. KIT researchers have now developed 3D inks that can be erased selectively. This allows specific degradation and reassembly of highly precise structures on the micrometer and nanometer scales. The new photoresists are presented in the journal Nature Communications, July 2018
KIT scientists, together with experts for dental implants, have now developed a nanostructured surface to accelerate wound healing after implantation and to better protect it against the attack of bacteria.
Innovative Method for Steel Strip Drying – The KIT-Institute of Combustion Technology of the Engler-Bunte Institute is coordinating the research project in the EU’s Horizon 2020. Thanks to a new furnace design, energy efficiency in industrial steel strip drying can be significantly increased and the size of the facility drastically reduced. Using the planned process, investment and production costs can be cut by at least 40 percent. This is achieved through the use of infrared radiant burner technology.
Pure quartz glass is highly transparent and resistant to thermal, physical, and chemical impacts. These are optimum prerequi-sites for use in optics, data technology or medical engineering. For efficient, high-quality machining, however, adequate pro-cesses are lacking. Scientists of KIT have developed a forming technology to structure quartz glass like a polymer. This innovation is reported in the journal Advanced Materials, 2018
Video: Glassomer-Processing Fused Silica Glass Like a Polymer
Under the AIRCOAT EU project, researchers from all over Europe develop an air coating that reduces frictional resistance of ships. They use the salvinia effect studied by KIT, it allows an air layer to permanently exist under water. The project is coordinated scientifically by physicist and nanotechnology expert Professor Thomas Schimmel, KIT.
The electronic nose, like the human nose, perceives complex gas mixtures – i.e. scents – and can recognize them based on specific signal patterns.The objective of smelldect is to develop a low-cost olfactory sensor suited for mass production and everyday use.
KIT Scientists Design Chemical Compounds for Use as Passwords for Encrypted Information. They use a new and highly secure approach by combining computer science with chemistry and a conventional encryption method with a chemical password. Their development is now reported in an open access publication in Nature Communications, April 2018.
New ZEISS Site at One of the Most Innovative Locations in Germany – New Space for Spinoffs and Enhanced Collaboration between Business and Academia – 12,000 m2 of Flexible Space Thanks to an Investment of EUR 30 Million
KIT’s Startup otego GmbH Has Developed “oTEG,“ the First Commercial Printed Thermoelectric Generator Worldwide.
Solar cells with efficiencies above 20% and produced at low costs – perovskites make this possible. Now, KIT-researchers have gained fundamental insight into the function of perovskite solar cells. They found that bound states of electron-hole pairs can form during the absorption of light. Still, these pairs can be separated easily for current to flow. In addition, they enhance absorption.
Researchers of KIT have how developed a new solution for the coupling of optical microchips to each other or to optical fibers. They use tiny beam-shaping elements that are printed directly onto the facets of optical components by a high-precision 3D printing process. These elements can be produced with nearly any three-dimensional shape and enable low-loss coupling of various optical components with a high positioning tolerance.
Graphic representation of measurement with a laser beam on a bullet. (Graphics: Christian Grupe, Philipp Trocha, KIT)
Microresonator-based optical frequency combs enable highly-precise optical distance ranging at a rate of 100 million measurements per second – publication in Science, Feb. 2018
Revolutionary 3D Laser Printing Process Is Used Worldwide – The German Physical Society Honors the Institute of Nanotechnology and the Innovation Management Service Unit of KIT as well as the Nanoscribe company.
Fungi may be harmful pathogens. On the other hand, they are used for the production of food or medicine and in bioengineering. In either case, it is required to precisely understand their growth mechanism.Using high-performance light microscopy, KIT-Researchers watched mold fungi as they grew in the cell. The findings are presented in Science Advances.
Report on a growth study of self-catalyzed GaAs nanowires based on time-resolved in situ X-ray structure characterization during molecular-beam-epitaxy in combination with ex situ scanning-electron-microscopy.
Nano Lett., Jan 2018
A surface-confined multistep reaction allows for the observation of the emergence of complexity through the formation of a defect-tolerant molecular network.
Kräfte von oben werden über Stege auf die senkrecht stehenden Ringstrukturen übertragen. Deren
Rotation übt zieht an den Ecken der waagerechten Flächen des Würfels.
Pressemitteilung des KIT
Transparente Beschichtung für Alltagsanwendungen
Neuer Werkstoff „Fluoropor“ lässt Wasser abperlen und widersteht Abrieb dank durchgehender Nano-/Mikrostruktur.
„Fluoropor“ als Beschichtung auf einer Kupfer-Dünnschicht.
Wissenschaftler am KIT kopieren Mikrostrukturen auf der Blüte und erhöhen die Leistung von Solarzellen
Neues Multifunktions-Elektronenmikroskop am KIT kann Strukturen in empfindlichen Materialien aufspüren. Nahaufnahme des neuen Multifunktions-Elektronenmikroskops am KIT.
Supraleitender Quantensimulator übertrifft konventionellen Computer und könnte komplizierte biologische Prozesse wie den Pflanzenstoffwechsel abbilden
Quantenbits können im Gegensatz zu klassischen Bits zwei Zustände zugleich annehmen: rechts und links, gelb und blau, Null und Eins.
Zwei Lenz-Linsen in einem Helmholtz-Spulenpaar angeordnet. Die Simulation zeigt, wie die Lenz-Linsen den magnetischen Fluss räumlich fokussieren.
Presseinformation des KIT
Hirnentwicklung in der Petrischale: Axone (gruen) der Nervenzellen der Netzhaut lesen beim Wachstum mit molekularen Antennen (magenta) an ihrem Ende chemische Signale, die zum Ziel führen.
Presseinformation des KIT