Interdisciplinarity and internationality

Two leading motifs in the research of the team are a rather broad interest in challenging chemical topics and the approved ability for interdisciplinary and transnational cooperation. This attitude finds its reflection in the research topics ranging from fundamental studies together with theoreticians and physicists over the wide area of organic chemistry and catalysis all the way to cooperations with biochemists or atmospheric field studies with meteorologists. In addition to joint publications and bilateral grant applications, the team members took part in measuring campaigns to European Multiuser facilities such as the synchrotrons ELETTRA (Trieste, Italy) and Super-ACO (Orsay, France, now SOLEIL) and the infrared-laser sites CLIO (Orsay, France) and FELIX (Utrecht, Netherlands).

As an example, it is referred to a study on zinc alkoxide as precursors for the generation of ZnO nanoparticles which was the result of a cooperation of inorganic chemists, spectrometrists, physical chemists, and material scientists (see below).

Pure chance: Chemical vapor synthesis using an organometallic single-source precursor is applied to the preparation of ultrapure, size-selected, nanocrystalline ZnO particles (see picture). The morphological genesis of the particles in the gas phase is investigated, and a model of the gas-phase sintering of ZnO is proposed. Polarz S., Roy A., Merz M., Halm S., Schröder D., Schneider L., Bacher G., Kruis F.E., Driess M.: Chemical Vapour Synthesis of Size-Selected Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles. Small 1: 540-552 (2005).