Revolutionizing science with Big Data - PhD project featured

10.05.2021 Lars Dammann's PhD project featured  - The PhD project of Lars Damman on "Water and Hydrocarbons in Confined Geometries: Correlating High Resolution X-Ray Diffraction with Molecular Dynamics Simulation" within DASHH is featured by the Helmholtz Association, see here.

 

Sustainable harvesting of electrical energy with nanoporous materials (EU funding)

25.02.2021 Sustainable harvesting of electrical energy with nanoporous materials - Can phase transitions of water in nanopores be used to generate electrical energy on a larger scale? This is what we, within an international team of researchers, will be investigating in the European Union-funded research project "Energy harvesting via wetting/drying cycles with nanoporous electrodes (EHAWEDRY)", see additional details here (English/German).

Nachhaltige Gewinnung elektrischer Energie mit nanoporösen Materialien

 

Anisotropic confinement of chromophores induces second-order nonlinear optics in a nanoporous photonic metamaterial

09.02.2021 Second-order nonlinear optics, in particular Second-Harmonic Generation (SHG) is the base for a large variety of devices aimed at the active manipulation of light. Within an European collaboration we demonstrate that embedding chromophores in conical silica nanopores results in a photonic metamaterial exhibiting SHG, see the article entitled "Anisotropic confinement of chromophores induces second-order nonlinear optics in a nanoporous photonic metamaterial", published in Optics Letters.

 

"Precursor Film Spreading during Liquid Imbibition in Nanoporous Photonic Crystals" published in Physical Review Letters

01.12.2020 Optofluidic study on liquid imbibition dynamics entitled "Precursor Film Spreading during Liquid Imbibition in Nanoporous Photonic Crystals" has been published in Physical Review Letters. The paper resulted from a collaboration with Luisa Cencha, Claudio Berli and Raul Urteaga from Argentina.

 

"Giant electrochemical actuation in a nanoporous silicon-polypyrrole hybrid material" published in Science Advances

30.09.2020 Silicon Flexes Muscles: Our article "Giant electrochemical actuation in a nanoporous silicon-polypyrrole hybrid material" has been published in Science Advances, see also a press release by DESY (English/German) or listen to the podcast episode "Künstliche Muskeln - Poröses Silizium dehnt sich auf Knopfdruck aus", Forschung Aktuell - Deutschlandfunk (05.01.21).

 

  1. Article "Ionic liquid dynamics in nanoporous carbon: A pore-size- and temperature-dependent neutron spectroscopy study on supercapacitor materials" published
  2. Book "Soft Matter in Geometrical Confinement" published
  3. Self-Assembly of Liquid Crystals in Nanoporous Solids for Adaptive Photonic Metamaterials
  4. Minisymposium: Fluids in Nanoporous Media

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News

  • 17.09.2026 A Tale of Two Waters: H₂O and D₂O Electrify Surfaces Differently

    Hydrophobic nanoporous silicon acts as a single platform for comparing three solid–liquid triboelectrification regimes: immersion–emersion, droplet contact, and pressure-driven pore intrusion, with H2O and D2O highlighting isotope-dependent electrical responses. Rather than providing one simple mechanism, the study published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C opens new questions about the molecular origins of water–solid electrification—and shows how isotope substitution can help uncover them. 

    J. Phys. Chem. C (2026) 130 (36): 12748–12756.
    https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.6c04134

     

  • 05.06.2026 Water, Clay and Carbon: A New Route to Sustainable Energy Storage

    🌎 Water, Clay and Carbon: A New Route to Sustainable Energy Storage - we demonstrate an all-water supercapacitor stable over 60,000 charging cycles. 

    💧⚡Can pure water store electrical energy? A research team within the Cluster of Excellence BlueMat – Water-Driven Materials has now shown that it can.

    🔋 By confining water within nanometer-sized channels in clay minerals, the team developed a supercapacitor capable of efficiently storing and transporting electrical charge with remarkable stability.

    💡 Read more in our latest press release ➡️ https://lnkd.in/dttmcBcQ

    Publication:
    Artemov, V. et al., All-water supercapacitor enabled by 1-nm clay channels, Nat Commun 17, 5014 (2026).

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-73924-1

  • 23.04.2026 Lehmann Prize awarded to Patrick Huber

    🏆 Congratulations to Patrick Huber on receiving the Volker Lehmann Prize for the most outstanding talk at the 2026 Porous Semiconductors Science and Technology Conference (PSST2026) in Naples, Italy.

    💧 His presentation, “Nature’s Blueprint: Water-Enabled Functions in Hierarchically Porous Silicon,” showcased key research directions of the Cluster of Excellence BlueMat: Water-Driven Materials. 

    🏆 The Lehmann Prize honors Volker Lehmann, who—together with Leigh Canham and Ulrich Gösele - co-discovered the quantum confinement effect in silicon.

  • 22.10.2025  Water as an energy carrier: nanoporous silicon generates electricity from friction with water

    Exciting news! Our new publication in Nano Energy presents a novel way for converting mechanical energy into electricity – by harnessing water confined in nanometre-sized pores of silicon as the active working fluid (press release).

  • 29.09.2025 Colossal Effect of Nanopore Surface Ionic Charge on the Dynamics of Confined Water

    In a recent publication, we report a particularly rewarding result from a French-German collaboration linking Hamburg, Rennes, Grenoble and Paris, with key neutron scattering experiments carried out at the high-flux neutron reactor of the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, France. 

    We show that water behaves very differently when confined to tiny nanopores—and that surface charge makes all the difference. Adding ionic charges to pore walls dramatically slows down water motion, not just in the vicinity of the pore wall but throughout the entire pore. This long-range control goes far beyond simple wetting effects and highlights surface charge as a powerful tool for using water as a nanoscale working fluid in water-driven materials, membranes, and nanotechnologies.