14.06.2021 Nanostructuring of materials leads to completely new, often surprising properties; this makes them highly interesting for new fields of application and technologies. However, whether these materials can be processed into robust components and thus find their way into applications depends very much on their mechanical properties. These are usually particularly difficult to determine without changing them through the measuring process or even destroying the materials. Within a German-French research team we have now developed a non-contact and non-destructive measurement method using laser ultrasound in such a way that the elastic properties of nanostructured materials can be characterised in detail. The results are reported in an article entitled "Laser-excited elastic guided waves reveal the complex mechanics of nanoporous silicon" in the journal Nature Communications (see also the DESY/TUHH press release: German/English).
11.05.2021 The article "Synergistic and Competitive Adsorption of Hydrophilic Nanoparticles and Oil-Soluble Surfactants at the Oil–Water Interface" has been published in Langmuir. An illustration from the article is featured on the cover of the current Langmuir issue.
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.
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).
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
- "Giant electrochemical actuation in a nanoporous silicon-polypyrrole hybrid material" published in Science Advances
- Article "Ionic liquid dynamics in nanoporous carbon: A pore-size- and temperature-dependent neutron spectroscopy study on supercapacitor materials" published
- Book "Soft Matter in Geometrical Confinement" published
