Nina Strasser won the XRD Photo Award at the XRD excites: Non-Ambient XRD & Beyond International Symposium 2024 conference. The image includes a volcano to indicate that the temperatures that are reached during the experiments can be as hot as lava. The competition was organized by Anton Paar.

Gabriel Hernández Rodríguez won a Young Researcher Award from the European Materials Research Society Meeting at the 2024 Spring Meeting in Strasbourg. Gabriel's contribution was called Icephobic properties of gradient polymer coatings deposited via iCVD.

Roland Resel was featured in the Scilog series which profiles prominent Austrian scientists. Resel uses x-rays to determine how the atoms are arranged in organic thin films. In the video he explains his philosophy of doing science.

Video: https://scilog.fwf.ac.at/en/magazine/a-seeker-of-materials

The paper "Smart Core-Shell Nanostructures for Force, Humidity and
Temperature Multi-Stimuli Responsiveness" authored by T. Abu Ali, P.
Schäffner, M. Belegratis, G. Schider, B. Stadlober, A. M. Coclite was
selected as editor's pick and featured in the 'Best of Advanced
Materials Technologies 2022' (link:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/page/journal/2365709x/homepage/best-of-advanced-materials-technologies-2022.html)
virtual issue.

The Best of Advanced Materials Technologies 2022 presents the editors'
selection of outstanding articles published in 2022 by experts from all
over the world. This collection covers a wide spectrum of topics,
including soft robotics, wearable electronics, light emitters, energy
harvesting and storage, tissue engineering, sensors, and many more.

This article ranked in the top 10% of downloads from the journal Advanced Materials Technologies.

Material scientist Anna Maria Coclite unveils "smart skin" — artificial skin technology that responds to touch, temperature and humidity like your very own. (It's actually even more sensitive than human skin!) From helping burn victims to paving the way to smarter, safer humanoid robots, Coclite highlights the broad-ranging potential of this innovation.

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3eROozZg10

With his photo titled "A cold, slow, and imminent fate" Gabriel Hernandez Rodriguez won the first prize of the scientific picture competition of TU Graz 2023. In the picture, a drop of water is lying for more than 2 hours on a surface at -25°C. This was possible due to a nanometric anti-icing coating applied on the surface. Find out more at www.surfice-itn.eu Foto credit: Lunghammer@TU Graz

ERC Proof of Concept

May 2023 - The ERC Proof of Concept Grants give the possibility to test the exploitability of ideas born during one of the main ERC grants. Anna Maria Coclite and her research group will use this opportunity to dive more into the Smart Skin device, find industrial partner and define a market strategy. More news at TU Graz media service or on local news papers, e.g. Der Standard.

A short film was produced by P.M. Wissen and was broadcasted on Servus TV on 15.12.2022. If you missed it, the film is available also on the website https://www.pm-wissen.com/technik/v/aa-28wxj67pd2111/

The American Institute of Physics featured an article on a sweat sensor produced at the Institute of Solid State Physics together with some Italian collaborators in a Scilight. The publication is

Sweat analysis with a wearable sensing platform based on laser-induced graphene
F. Maria Vivaldi, A. Dallinger, N. Poma, A. Bonini, D. Biagini, P. Salvo, F. Borghi, A. Tavanti, F. Greco, and F. Di Francesco,
APL Bioengineering (2022). doi.org/10.1063/5.0093301

The unobtrusive remote monitoring of health conditions is key in biomedical applications. Laser-Induced Graphene (LIG) electrodes for electrochemical sensing are a fast and cheap method for creating sensors that can be used in wearable monitoring devices. In this case a wearable LIG based sweat monitor was demonstrated.

"Life of a paper sample": Viktoria Haberl und Maximilian Fuchs show how the microstructure of a paper sheet is measured with Xray microcomputed tomography - seen entirely from the perspective of the sample.
This work is a cooperation between the Christian Doppler laboratory for mass transport through paper and the Graz μ-CT Consortium.

see the video clip

Lukas Hörmann has successfully competed for a UFO postdoctoral fellowship from the Austrian state of Styria. The project has a duration of one year and is entitled "Switchable superlubricity". Superlubricity, a state of ultra-low friction, will facilitates a significant reduction of friction-related energy loss and device failure of any moving mechanical device. Given the trend towards miniaturisation of such devices, studies of mechanical properties at atomic scales become ever more important. Developing nanoscale devices exhibiting superlubricity requires a detailed understanding of the fundamental principles governing dynamic sliding friction at an atomic scale.

An article on using vacuum gaps in semiconductor devices that appeared in Applied Physics Letters (Peter Oles, Alexander Breymesser, Oliver Blank, and Peter Hadley, Integrated sub-micron vacuum gaps in semiconductor devices, Appl. Phys. Lett. 121, 062107 (2022)) was featured as a Scilight of the AIP.

Vacuum gaps are useful because they do not fatigue, have no dielectric loss, and transfers no stress. The highest electric fields in a microelectronics device were achieved in these structures. The electric field was 6 GV/m.

A TV Feature was produced by PULS-4 and will be broadcasted on their TV channel on 9.8.2022 at 19:15. If you miss it, the film is available also on the website PULS4

The Graz micro Computed Tomography Consortium was featured in issue #27 of the Research Journal of the Graz University of Technology. In x-ray computer tomography, x-ray images are taken of an object from many angles and a computer constructs a 3D model from the images.

Go to the TU Graz Research Journal

A news article appeared in Steiermark.orf.at about the research on sensor arrays that is being led by Prof. Anna Maria Coclite within her ERC Starting Grant "Smart Core". Pressure, temperature, and humidity sensitivities were combined in a single material. The device has a density of 2000 sensors per mm², which allows to sense with a resolution much smaller than human finger tip. The original scientific paper is published on Advanced Materials Technologies

FWF and DFG recently accepted our DACH-project HiTeq. In this project, our German colloegues will develop a new experimental chamber to grow inorganic/organic interfaces in thermodynamic equilirbium. With this approach, we can, for the first time, establish true phase diagrams for this material class. These experimental phase diagrams are invaluable as benchmarks for recent developments in theory, allowing us to gain insight into the accuracy of commonly used approaches, as well as into the validity of common approxmations done in ab-initio thermodynamics.

Taher Abu Ali and Anna Maria Coclite were acknowledged by the TU Graz for their invention:

Combination of a piezoelectric and a hydrogel in core-shell structure, which is capable of temperature, humidity and pressure sensing

This invention is based on results obtained in the ERC project SmartCore.

Tomas Kamencek and Egbert Zojer published a study of the Elastic Properties of MOF-74 derivaties in the Journal of Physical Chemistry C.

Tomas Kamencek and Egbert Zojer, Understanding the Anisotropic Elastic Properties of Metal–Organic Frameworks at the Nanoscale: The Instructive Example of MOF-74, J. Phys. Chem. C 2021, 125, 44, 24728–24745, https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpcc.1c07882.

All of the studied MOFs exhibit qualitatively different responses to either unidirectional or isotropic stress, which can be ascribed to distinctly different atomic rearrangements for stress parallel or perpendicular to the channel direction.

This work was performed as part of the Porous Materials @ Work project.

An article by the Porous Materials @ Work consortium was published in Advanced Materials Interfaces. An image from the article,

Mercedes Linares-Moreau, Lea A. Brandner, Tomas Kamencek, Sumea Klokic, Francesco Carraro, Kenji Okada, Masahide Takahashi, Egbert Zojer, Christian J. Doonan, Paolo Falcaro, Semi-Automatic Deposition of Oriented Cu(OH)2 Nanobelts for the Heteroepitaxial Growth of Metal–Organic Framework Films, https://doi.org/10.1002/admi.202170116

appears on the front cover of the journal.

The Master thesis of Jasmin Pfleger on "Development of anti-sticking coating of micro- and nanostructured substrates prepared by Chemical Vapor Deposition" has been awarded an WKO-Steirermark scholar ship for its applicability to industry.

Hana Hampel won the Special Prize for Innovative Research from the Forum for Technology and Society for her thesis on Laser Induced Graphene (LIG). The prize is awarded to a master thesis with a particularly high social relevance.

http://tug2.tugraz.at/foerderpreis

Francesco Greco and Matthias Gritzner won the third price in the audience vote of the TU Graz SciPix photo competition. Their photo shows UV ink contained in microfluidic channels made from hydrophilic and hydrophobic Laser Induced Graphene (LIG). A video of the principles of the microfluidic channels can be found on the webpage of the LAMPSe Lab.

The EuroMOF2021, an international conference on metal-organic framworks and porous polymers, was organized as an online event between September 13 and 15. Among the 195 poster presentations of participants from 41 (also non-european) countries, Tomas Kamencek was awarded a poster prize for his work on understanding the anisotropic elastic properties in variants of MOF-74. The study, which was recently accepted by the Journal of Physical Chemistry C, shows that atomistic insight in the deformation mechanisms in MOFs is crucial to interpret the variations in the elastic properties upon changing the building blocks of the MOF and to establish structure-to-property relations.

The AVS 21^st International Conference on Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD 2021) featuring the 8th International Atomic Layer Etching Workshop (ALE 2021) was adapted into a Virtual Meeting and took place on June 27-30, 2021. Five ALD Student Finalists were chosen from the submitted student abstracts and Marianne won with her contribution "Tuning Properties of Vapor Deposited ZIF-8 Thin Films With Preferred Orientation".

Sandro Wiesner won a fellowship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences entitled “Understanding heat transport in metal-organic frameworks in real and reciprocal space”. The high inner surface area of Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) is utilized in a large range of applications including gas separation, gas storage or catalysis. Many of the involved processes generate or consume heat. Efficient heat dissipation is often essential to maintain stable and efficient working conditions. Therefore, it is important to investigate heat transport in MOFs. Due to the enormous number of different MOFs, it is crucial to not only provide thermal conductivity values for specific systems, but to fundamentally understand structure-to-property-relationships for heat transport. To achieve this, several complementary theoretical techniques will be applied to analyze thermal transport for different MOFs. Molecular dynamics simulations will show locally resolved transport bottlenecks in real space, while the phonon picture will provide understanding regarding the origin of different heat transport properties in reciprocal space. This will pave the way for a targeted tailoring of MOFs for specific applications relying on heat transport via structural modifications.

The latest publication of the Hofmann group with the title Nonintuitive Surface Self-Assembly of Functionalized Molecules on Ag(111) has just been published in ACS Nano. It shows how we model molecular monolayers, confirm them with experiments (performed at FSU Jena) and extract physical insight from Bayesian learning. The new insights are another step towards in-silico materials design for functional electronics. The work has been covered in Planet Research

As part of the digitalization initiative of the TU Graz, Research Data Management (RDM) projects were awarded through the RDM Marketplace. One of these projects is RETEACH (REsearch daTa managEment for the GrAz micro-Computed tomograpHy consortium). This project is led by Eduardo Machado and Robert Schennach with the collaboration of Cecilia Poletti, IMAT and Florian Mittermayr, IMBT.

X-ray micro-computed tomography (µCT) studies generate vast data collections that need to be stored, archived, and accessed. To ensure that the data will be FAIR before and after publication, RETEACH seeks to provide Graz-µCT researchers with a prototype for tomographic data management.

Graz-µCT is a consortium of 13 institutes at Graz University of Technology (TUG), University of Graz (KFUG), and Medical University of Graz (MUG). This consortium will purchase an µCT instrument, which will be hosted at the Institute of Solid State Physics. Users from a wide variety of disciplines will use the infrastructure for their research; thus, we will generate large amounts of data. A typical user of a µCT device can collect terabytes of data in a single week. This data must be managed, documented, shared, and processed appropriately in our project to ensure re-usability and reliability of research data. We therefore aim at introducing well-structured research data management processes throughout the lifecycle of the data. CyVerse Austria (CAT) is already deployed at the three participating universities and, therefore, will serve as the tool of choice for our data management. CAT will help us to easily transfer the data from TUG, where the data is generated, to the partners at MUG and KFUG. Besides, through the metadata schema in CAT and laboratory notebooks Powered by CAT, we will ensure adequate documentation. Finally, we aim to implement our data processing tools as Docker images in CAT to cover the whole data workflow on one platform.

Link to the F2F Marketplace event last 28 October.

The paper Applicability of Vapor-Deposited Thermoresponsive Hydrogel Thin Films in Ultrafast Humidity Sensors/Actuators is featured in ACS Editor Choice and is in the journal Cover Front image. The papers published under the ACS Editor Choice are sponsored for immediate, free open access by ACS due to their potential for broad public interest, an honor given to only one article from the entire ACS portfolio each day of the year.

A new project, named SURFICE, has been funded by the European Community in the frame of the Marie Skłodowska Curie European Training Network. 13 early stage researchers will be hired on this project to work in different university locations.

The project will address three major research objectives: (i) investigate icing physics on complex surfaces to understand and model ice formation, accretion and adhesion; (ii) achieve rational design for anti-icing materials and coatings based on a novel concept of discontinuity-enhanced icephobicity; and (iii) develop new technologies for efficient ice prevention and control. The proposed anti-icing solutions will be directly applied in aeronautics, energy systems and sensor technologies, as well as glass manufacturing and automotive industry through industrial partners. The group of Anna Maria Coclite will work on the second objective.

We are very proud to present our new study in which we combined two innovative machine learning algorithms to refute previous theories of long-range charge transfer to molecules not in direct contact with the surface. The study has been published in Advanced Science (here) . The new insights help to guide material design for functional electronics. The work has been covered in Planet Research

Printed tattoo electrodes and the activities of the Laboratory of Applied Materials for Printed and Soft electronics (LAMPSe) at the Institute of Solid State Physics have been highlighted on ORF2 TV News "Steiermark Heute".





Check out the video and interview with F. Greco and A. Dallinger ORFTVThek

Francesco Greco and his team at the Laboratory of Applied Materials for Printed and Soft electronics (LAMPSe) at the Institute of Solid State Physics have developed tattoo electrodes for brain signals recording in collaboration with Italian and French scientists. They use an inkjet printer to print electrodes on the type of tattoo paper that is normally used for temporary tattoos for children. The polymer film that is transferred to the skin is so thin that it conforms to the wrinkles of the skin and makes reliable electrical contact. These electrodes are not uncomfortable and are well suited for long term measurements.

Read more in the TU Graz press release or watch this video of Francesco Greco explaning tattoo electrodes.

Tomas Kamencek received a DOC fellowship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences. This fellowship will finance his PhD studies.

Understanding and Engineering Phonon Properties for Controlling Mechanical and Thermal Characteristics in Metal-Organic Frameworks
Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are an emerging class of materials often showing surprising properties like negative thermal expansion and negative Poisson’s ratios. The porous frameworks consisting of heavy metal centres connected by organic linkers often have internal surface areas of several thousand square metres per gram. Besides more traditional applications of MOFs (gas adsorption and separation, catalysis) exploiting the huge amounts of internal surface area, a more recent trend is to integrate MOFs into functional devices. However, design of that kind requires an in-depth understanding of the fundamental relations between the structure of a MOF and its mechanical, electrical, thermal, etc. characteristics. Therefore, the aim of the project will be to shed light on the mechanical and thermal properties, which can be conveniently described within the phonon picture of crystalline matter. Beyond that, a combined approach of theoretical and experimental techniques will be applied to study also anharmonic effects such as the thermal expansion coefficients as a function of structural components.

"In a letter to the journal Applied Physics Letters [Machado-Charry et al. Appl. Phys. Lett (2020)], a team from Université Grenoble Alpes, Graz University of Technology, Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, Université Paris-Saclay and Université de Montréal show how to better control the graphene on SiC substrate, which is a helpful platform for growing other 2D materials that benefits from remote epitaxy."

In this work, the team provides an atomic description for a particular surface reconstruction that helps advance graphene science. They also demonstrate a new kind of reconstruction mixing order and disorder at the surface of a semiconductor compound. The team presents the exploration of the C-face surface of SiC. The underlying model of the 3x3 reconstruction occurring at its surface remained unknown since its report in 1997. Based on an intensive DFT-based exploration, the team finds that this reconstruction comes from an ordered all-silicon over-layer adopting a honeycomb-kagome lattice. They further characterize this model through STM simulation, including an explicit tip. This allows them to refine the model, showing that a disorder substitution is at play below the over-layer. The combination of the two reconstruction levels makes this surface reconstruction unique among other semiconductors, explaining why it took decades to decipher its atomic structure. Thus, besides the importance of SiC for graphene growth or high power electronics, this particular reconstruction is of great interest to the applied physics community.

This work was further highlighted in Materials Today.

The Vacuum Technology Division of the American Vacuum Society (AVS), awarded the paper, Universal software for the real-time control of sequential processing techniques, Pilz, Tazreiter, Coclite, published on J. Vac. Sci. Technol. A 37(6), Nov/Dec 2019, with the AVS Shop Notes prize for 2019.
Each year, the executive committee of the AVS Vacuum Technology Division awards this prize to the authors who published the best Shop Note in the Journals (A or B) of Vacuum Science & Technology.

Original Article in Journal of Vacuum Science and Technology A

Hannah Kaspret spent her summer as FIT intern at the Institute of Solid State Physics of TU Graz and built flower petals out of Polydimenthylsiloxane that reacts to water vapour.

TU Graz News

The Master thesis of Clarissa on “Ellipsometric porosimetry set-up and study of thin films in the nanometer regime” has been awarded by the WKO-Steiermark for its applicability to industry. The main focus of the thesis is to build up an ellipsometric porosimeter and to later on determine the porosity and pore size distribution of thin films.

Latest issue of TU Graz research magazine focuses on Additive Manufacturing: the 3D Revolution. Tattoo skin-contact electrodes developed at our Institute of Solid State Physics TU Graz are showcased in a short interview and a You-Tube Video.




Article onTU Graz News,
TU Graz Research Magazine,
Video

The interpretation of experimental spectra is a very non-intuitive task for humans, since it is far from everyday experience and requires a lot of training. We have recently started to develop a new software that applies neural network based image recognition technology to help with this interpretation. We’re happy to announce that NVidia got excited about our idea and supports us with the donation of an expensive, science level GPU card (NVidia Titan V)!

In collaboration with the Austrian UNESCO Commission (ÖUK) and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) L OREAL Österreich awards scholarships to young researchers. Katrin Unger was awarded a scholarship to develop PH sensors that are intended to be placed on the skin of a person with a temporary tattoo.

L OREAL Österreich, Stipendien für junge Grundlagen-Forscherinnen in Österreich

The design of a flexible pH sweat sensor that is bio-compatible, has skin-alike elasticity and is sus- tainable in acidic environments is a challenging task. Current trends in research tend to an organic compound consisting pH sensor for medical diagnostic applications. But so far the manufacturing pro- cess of such sensors is not feasible nor scalable. In this proposal a novel all-polymer sensor approach will be presented that address all the challenges mentioned above and use a manufacturing process that is direct and scalable. Polymer electrodes will be ink-jet printed on temporary tattoo paper and coated with a bio-compatible pH responsive hydrogel via initiated Chemical Vapor Deposition. Such pH responsive hydrogels absorb different amounts of water depending on the pH. Upon swelling of the gel film the conductivity will increase and the resistance will decrease. The pH can therefore be detected by means of resistance measurements through impedance spectroscopy. Hydrogel-based pH sensors have a remarkable great sensitivity to pH. The use of temporary tattoo paper as substrate material will have two major advantages. One being the fact that tattoo transferred hydrogels will be in intimate contact with the skin leading to more precise and faster detection of the pH of the skin. The other being that the printed polymer electrodes can directly act as read out terminals for the hydrogels response. For the first time tattoo electrodes will be coated with a responsive material via a vapor-based technique. This novel combination enables for a very thin sensor, excellent conformal adhesion to the skin and great pH sensitivity. All through the use of direct and scalable methods, which in combination open the door for a wide range of possible interesting applications.

TU Graz News, ORF

The Hofmann group has now released the SAMPLE software package, which facilitates surface structure search for commensurate organic monolayers on inorganic substrates, by using coarse-grained modeling and machine learning. The software can be found here , the method has been published in CPC

Molecular tunneling junctions should enable the tailoring of charge-transport at the quantum level through synthetic chemistry but are hindered by the dominance of the electrodes. We show that the frontier orbitals of molecules can be decoupled from the electrodes, preserving their relative energies in self-assembled monolayers even when a top-contact is applied. This decoupling leads to the remarkable observation of tunneling probabilities that increase with distance in a series of oligothiophenes, which we explain using a two-barrier tunneling model. This model is generalizable to any conjugated oligomers for which the frontier orbital gap can be determined and predicts that the molecular orbitals that dominate tunneling charge-transport can be positioned via molecular design rather than by domination of Fermi-level pinning arising from strong hybridization. The ability to preserve the electronic structure of molecules in tunneling junctions facilitates the application of well-established synthetic design rules to tailor the properties of molecular-electronic devices.

This work is a collaboration between the Stratingh Institute for Chemistry and the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen (Netherlands) with the Institute of Solid State Physics, TU Graz.

Original Article in J. Am. Chem. Soc.

Highly conductive interfacial layers are designed, which allow tuning the contact resistance of organic thin‐film transistors over three orders of magnitude with minimum values well below 1 kΩ cm. This not only permits the realization of highly competitive p‐type (pentacene‐based) devices on rigid as well as flexible substrates, but also enables the realization of n‐type (C60‐based) transistors with comparable characteristics utilizing the same electrode material (Au). The contact resistances are reduced by i) eliminating the injection barrier through a suitable dipole orientation, and by ii) boosting the transmission of charge carriers through a deliberate reduction of the SAM thickness. Notably, the embedding of the dipolar group into the backbones of the SAM‐forming molecules allows exploiting their beneficial effects without modifying the growth of the active layer.

This work is a collaboration between the Institute of Solid State Physics, TU Graz, the Stadlober group at the Materials Institute, Joanneum Research, Weiz (Austria), the Zharnikov group at the University of Heidelberg (Germany), and the Terfort group at the Goethe University Frankfurt/Main (Germany).

Original Article in Advanced Functional Materials

The Research Journal of the TU Graz published an article on the Christian Doppler Laboratory on Mass Transport in Paper

What does industry-scale cement bag filling have in common with a pit stop in Formula 1? Filling a 25kg paper bag with cement in the factory takes about three seconds, about as long as a pit stop. But packaging and paper manufacturer Mondi reckons this is too long. They asked TU Graz to study the material flow that is at work in this process. One of the deliverables is a simulation model for material transport trough paper so that the knowledge of the “paper bags” can also be applied to other packaging applications.

The full article

The Christian Doppler Laboratory on Mass transport through paper was inaugurated on April 24th.
In the laboratory, director Karin Zojer and her team (TU Graz, Med Uni Graz) aim at predicting the efficiency and speed of transport of gasses, particles, and microorganisms through paper sheets.
To relate this transport efficiency to the paper-specific pore structure, the team will combine mathematical and statistical modelling with complementary experiments.
Such investigations will shed light on processes such as oxygen exchange in paper packages under storage conditions, drying speed of ink droplets, or on the air ventilation during filling of dry goods in paper bags.

See also press release TU Graz

Karin Zojer was awarded an Elise Richter fellowship from the FWF. This program is designed for highly qualified female scientists who strive for an university career. Dr. Zojer's proposal, "Transient characteristics of organic thin-film transistors", focuses on the operation frequencies of organic thin film transistors (OTFTs). Such transistors represent an increasingly important technology, since they can be cheaply fabricated on large and flexible substrates. To date, however, their operating speed cannot compete with the switching speed of silicon-based transistors. Theoretical simulations will employed to demonstrate that the apparent lack of switching speed is due to an inefficient injection of charge carriers from the electrodes.

Article in the university press:
TU GRAZ people #50/2014-2

The Master thesis of Bernhard Burtscher on “Inkjet-printed organic photodiode on an ultrathin, commercial, conformal and transferrable polymer substrate” has been awarded by the WKO-Steiermark for its applicability to industry.


WKO Forschungsstipendien 2018/19

Oliver Hofmann won this year's START-prize, Austria's most prestigious award for young scientists. In his project, MAP-DESIGN, Oliver and his group aim at predicting novel materials with outstanding properties using quantum-mechanical calculations, as well as providing recipes describing how these materials can be actually obtained in a lab. More information can be found in the press release and the interview by Die Presse and Der Standard, or Die Kronenzeitung

Jennifer Prohinig won the Best Student Paper Award at the 41^st International Semiconductor Conference, CAS 2018, October 10-12, Sinaia, Romania, for her contribution, "Influence of Platinum-Hydrogen Complexes on Silicon p+/n-Diode Characteristics."

Electrodes for long-term monitoring of electrical impulses of heart or muscles were fabricated in the form of temporary tattoos produced using an ink-jet printer. An international research team involving Institute of Solid State Physics TU Graz together with IIT, Universitá degli Studi di Milano and Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna in Italy, presents this novel method in Advanced Science.

Paper in Advanced Science (open access)

In the presented method, conducting polymers are printed on commercial temporary tattoo paper, thus producing single or multiple electrode arrangements. The external connections necessary for transmitting the signals are integrated directly in the tattoo. The tattoo electrodes are then applied to the skin like temporary transfer tattoos and can hardly be felt by the wearer. Due to their extreme thinness (< 1 μm), the electrodes can be adapted perfectly to the uneven human skin, and can even be applied to parts of the body where traditional electrodes are not suitable, for instance the face. Francesco Greco explains: “With this method we have managed to take a big step forward in further developing epidermal electronics. We are on a direct road to making an extremely economical and simple as well as versatile applicable system which has enormous market potential.”

TU Graz News, ORF.at in German, KRONE.at in German, derStandard.at in German, PHYS.org, Sciencedaily.com, TV BROADCAST RAI3 TG Leonardo in Italian, COMPAMED-tradefair

Last week the workshop Interfacing Machine Learning and Experimental Methods
for Surface Structures (IMPRESS) was held at the TU Graz. The advent of machine learning methods has drastically changed the way structure determination is performed, since it facilitates the rational design of (new) experiments and the analysis of large amounts of data. The target of the workshop was to bring experimentalists and theorists together, so that both
can learn and benefit from each other's expertise. About 50 scientists from Asia, America, and Europe followed the call, making the workshop a great success.

Together with a consortium of five international collaborators from the United States, Germany and Finland, Oliver Hofmann won a 2017 Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) award. This gives his group access to MIRA, a national labs based supercomputer. Mira was the fifth-fastest supercomputer in 2013. The award comprises 160 million CPUh, worth approximately 1.6 million USD.
The project aims to advance the efficiency of organic and hybrid solar cells through computer-aided discovery and design of new materials and interfaces. To search the infinitely vast configuration space of materials structure and composition, we will integrate the proven DFT code FHI-aims with various structure search codes: One of them is SAMPLE, a structure search code developed at the TUG that is specifically dedicated to inorganic/organic interfaces.

Planet Research: Improved energy harvest in solar cells.

The Science Park Graz awarded Anna Maria Coclite with a 1000 € in the Startup Idea Competition. Anna's idea was to create artificial skin that has similar temperature, pressure, and humidity perception as real skin. Together with the cash prize, she also got the opportunity to attend the Science Park Academy: a series of workshops to coach scientists in being entrepreneurs.

For more info contact anna.coclite@tugraz.at.

The proposal "Materials and Interfaces for Organic and Hybrid Photovoltaics" has been selected for a 2018 Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) award by Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF). A total of 330 Mio CPUh have been awarded to a consortium of top-notch researchers from around the world, including the Hofmann group. The activities in Graz will focus on determining the structure and the properties of inorganic/organic interfaces using the recently developed SAMPLE algorithm – always with the purpose of finding the ideal material combination for photovoltaic cells, which are a cruicial factor in the quest for renewable, clean energy sources.

Electronic objects of daily life are becoming increasingly smaller – but at the same time more powerful and efficient. The research area of molecular electronics, a sub-area of microelectronics, aims at miniaturisation, and research in this field is being carried out at the Institute of Solid State Physics at TU Graz. At the centre of interest is how electricity can flow in individual molecules, molecular layers (i.e. in a layer of arranged molecules) and in molecular clusters. “Molecular electronics is the ultimate miniaturisation of electronics – single molecules suddenly become active elements and circuits become considerably smaller than they are, for instance, in microelectronics,” explains Egbert Zojer from TU Graz’s Institute of Solid State Physics.

June has been a very successful month for Oliver Hofmann and his group, with three papers accepted in peer-reviewed journals.

Simon Erker expanded the applicability of atomistic simulations to charged surfaces and defects with his paper in The New Journal of Physics. The method will find future applications in the prediction of surface structures and interface charge transfer on transparent conductive oxides, which are frequently employed in LEDs and solar cells.

Elisabeth Verwüster published a paper in The Journal of Chemical Physics, which explores the nature of the interactions between self-assembled molecules on metal surfaces. Understanding these interactions will help understanding the relation between molecular structure and polymorph formation. In the long run, it should become possible to design molecules such that specific crystal forms can be induced. This expertise is of high importance for many fields, most notably pharmaceuticals and organic electronics.

Veronika Obersteiner demonstrated the first practical application of the SAMPLE code, a highly innovative structure algorithm that is being developed in the Hofmann group. Together with experimental support from Nijmegen (The Netherlands), she uncovered the surface polymorph formed by tetracyanoethylene on Au(111). Thanks to the efficiency of SAMPLE, which allows structure prediction in a fraction of the time conventional try-and-error procedures would require, she was able convincingly demonstrate that the surface structure contains elements that cannot be imaged by STM experiments – a clear success story for computational structure prediction. The results and an introduction to the SAMPLE strategy have now been accepted for publication in Nano Letters, the world’s leading journal for nanotechnology.

Anna Maria Coclite gave a presentation on artificial skin in the TEDxGraz series. Watch the video here.

Temperature, shapes, textures are only some of the things that can be felt with the sense of touch. How to recreate the cycle of information from the environment to the skin to an action mediated by the brain? Anna Maria Coclite talks about how combining physics and chemistry can be used to create artificial skin for robots and humans.

Curiosity: it’s Anna’s driving force to pursue new ideas and ambitious projects. Each analysis unfolds one aspect of the story and her passion is putting them altogether to obtain the big picture. She is an Assistant Professor in the Institute of Solid State Physics of the Graz University of Technology and landed here after a postdoc of 3 years at the MIT, Boston, in the Chemical Engineering Department and after getting her PhD title at the University of Bari, Italy, in Chemistry.

Paul will spend 6 months at MIT in the group of Karen Gleason to perform research on Oxidative and initiated Chemical Vapor Deposition for the Synthesis of Sulfonated Polymer Electrolyte Membranes. His research stay will be funded by the Marshall Plan.

The Master thesis of Paul on “Designing actuator arrays based on thermo-responsive polymers by initiated Chemical Vapor Deposition” has been awarded by the WKO-Steirermark for its applicability to industry.

The aim of Anna Maria Coclite’s ERC-sponsored project “Smart Core” is to develop a hybrid material which can perceive temperature, humidity and pressure simultaneously and react accordingly. State-of-the-art materials currently include three different sensors for the perception and transmission of individual stimuli. The three-in-one hybrid material which Coclite and her team will work on simplifies the sensors of artificial skin and can increase sensory resolution 20-fold in comparison to human skin. This hugely increased sensory resolution of the novel hybrid material is achieved using a variety of nanorods on a surface. The “smart core” of these nanorods, hence the name of the project, consists of a polymer which responds to temperature and humidity by expanding. The change in thickness of the polymer exerts pressure on its shell, i.e. the nanorods, and these react sensitively to the pressure and in turn trigger stimuli. The hybrid material will achieve some 2,000 sensors per square millimetre, and thus spatial resolutions far below one millimetre, which corresponds to that of the human fingertip.

TU Graz News

Anna Maria Coclite won the IAAM Scientist Medal 2016, awarded by the International Association of Advanced Materials for her “notable and outstanding research in the Advanced Materials Science and Technology” (as written in the certificate). The award ceremony took place during the European Advanced Material Congress.

David Egger won a 2016 Sofja Kovalevskaja Award from the Humboldt Foundation. This award is granted to excellent young researchers who have completed their doctorate in the last six years and have published work in prestigious international journals. The Sofja Kovalevskaja Award will fund him for five years to build up a working group at the University of Regensburg. David investigates organic-inorganic perovskites which offer especially favourable properties for applications in solar cells. His goal is to optimise the material at the atomic level using supercomputers and with that increase its efficiency for using it in novel renewable energy technologies.

Oliver T. Hofmann was granted a three-year stand-alone project by the Austrian Science Fund FWF to study “Defects at Inorganic/Organic Interfaces”. Within the project, we will use density functional theory to study the impact of structural defects, such as dislocations, voids, etc., as well as the impact of chemical defects (i.e., contamination), on the electronic structure of molecule/metal interfaces. Such defects can be of high relevance, e.g., for organic electronics, where they potentially lead to the formation of “hot spots” that later lead to accelerated device degradation. A major challenge in the context of this project, however, is that the nature and the quantity of these defects is completely unknown. In order to elucidate these, we will develop a tailored first-principles structure search algorithm.

In collaboration with colleagues at the Université Libre de Bruxelles in Brussels, Belgium, Andrew Jones and Roland Resel have published a feature article in Advanced Functional Materials.

The article summarizes the current state of understanding regarding polymorphism within organic thin films, with a particular focus on a special type of polymorph only observed in thin films known as either substrate-induced or thin-film phases. Examples are taken from the literature, alongside several others which have been studied in the Institute of Solid State Physics. As the crystal structure of a material is strongly correlated with its physical properties, the work aims to understand why different polymorphs form and how this could be controlled so that materials with enhanced properties could be produced. Such control would be of importance in fields such as organic electronics and also in pharmaceutical science.

Adv. Funct. Mater., 2016, 26, 2233-2255

Robert Schennach is the new representative of TU Graz in the Austrian Vacuum Society (ÖGV). This society promotes advances in vacuum related science and technology in Austria.

Robert will also be the Austrian representative at the International Union for Vacuum Science, Technique and Applications (IUVSTA) for the Biointerfaces group. The IUVSTA organises the International Vacuum Conferences and several other smaller conferences and workshops (e.g. ECOSS, European Vacuum Conference).

Oliver T. Hofmann was granted a three-year stand-alone project by the Austrian Science Fund FWF. Within the project, entitled “Interaction Strength Tuning at Inorganic/Organic Interfaces”, a post-doc and a PhD student will be employed to study charge transfer at interfaces between organic molecules and coinage metals semiconductors. Such interfaces are of high technological relevance for organic electronics as well as for catalysis. Interestingly, semiconductor and metal substrates seem to induce very different charge-ordering phenomena. Using doping to make semiconductors gradually “more metallic”, and alloying to make coinage metals “less metallic”, the transition between the differently ordered phases will be studied using various computational methods, including density functional theory and post Hartree-Fock methods.

Georg Urstöger has won a stipend from the Styrian Chamber of Commerce for master thesis that have a strong bond to industrial research. The granted thesis, "Proton Conductive Polymers deposited by Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition”, focuses on the production of proton conductive membranes to be used in the fuel cell industry. Proton conductive membranes are the heart of the fuel cell that allows the protons to permeate but block the electrons which are guided through an external circuit to generate electricity. The technique we use is plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) which due to its nature has many advantages such as the tendency to produce crosslinked, stable polymers. The outcome of this thesis is to create a product that is feasible in cost but incorporates the good qualities of the currently best choices such as Nafion®.

Sebastian Nau won the 2014 Nano Prize of the Erwin Schrödinger Society. This prize is awarded to young scientists for excellent work in the field of nanoscience or nanotechnology. He reported a breakthrough in the understanding of organic memory devices in the journal Advanced Materials.


Unravelling the Nature of Unipolar Resistance Switching in Organic Devices by Utilizing the Photovoltaic Effect, Sebastian Nau, Stefan Sax, and Emil J. W. List-Kratochvil, Volume 26, Pages 2508–2513 (2014).

Anna Maria Coclite was awarded a Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowship within the 7th European Community Framework Programme. The fellowship funds top-class researchers from non-European Countries to work on projects in Europe. The granted project, "Smart multi Stimuli-responsive Supports for controlled cell growth (Three S) " , aims to the development of a material that respond to several external stimuli such as humidity, light and temperature. Multi-stimuli responsive materials have not been widely investigated because they require fine control over the material composition and response. The material will be obtained by initiated Chemical Vapor Deposition (iCVD), a method, invented at MIT, that allows obtaining thin films with high versatility. The envisioned outcome will be that the water uptake of the material changes with the afore-mentioned stimuli, resulting in stiffness change.

Emil J.W. List-Kratochvil has been appointed to the International Advisory Board of the Wiley journal Advanced Electronic Materials.

The Advanced Materials journal family (Advanced Materials, Advanced Energy Materials, Advanced Functional Materials, Advanced Healthcare Materials, Advanced Optical Materials, and Advanced Materials Interfaces) is being expanded to include Advanced Electronic Materials which will feature research in the fields of electronic and magnetic materials. The journal’s launch is scheduled for January 2015.

Researchers at the NanoTecCenter Weiz have developed a Electrolyte-Gated Organic Field-Effect Transistor (EGOFET) that can measure the concentration of specific ions in solution. These sensors could be used for biomedical diagnostics,
food-monitoring, industrial process- and water-control.

Kerstin Schmoltner, Johannes Kofler, Andreas Klug, and Emil J. W. List-Kratochvil, Electrolyte-Gated Organic Field-Effect Transistor for Selective Reversible Ion Detection, Adv. Mater. 2013 doi:10.1002/adma.201303281

Alfred Neuhold untersuchte Grenzschichten von Bauteilen für organische Elektronik. Seine Dissertation ist beschrieben im Wissenschaftsteil der Tageszeitung "Die Presse".



Die Presse 27.1.2013

An article on paper strength was featured on the cover of the Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter. The strength of fiber-fiber bonds was measured for different water content in the paper. This research was performed at the Christian Doppler Laboratory of Surface Chemical and Physical Fundamentals of Paper Strength along with collaborators at the Peter Grünberg Institute in Jülich, the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Montanuniversität in Leoben, and Joanneum Research.

10.1088/0953-8984/25/4/045002

David Egger, Dissertant am Institut für Festkörperphysik der TU Graz, erhielt für seine Arbeit zu Wechselwirkungen und physikalischen Eigenschaften von Molekülen am 26. November den Nano-Preis der Erwin Schrödinger Gesellschaft für Nanowissenschaften (ESG-Nano).

mehr

Den „Award of Excellence“ für eine besonders herausragende Dissertation verlieh das Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung (BMWF)am 12. Dezember Ferdinand Rissner für seine Dissertation zu Monolagen organischer Moleküle, also zu Materialschichten mit geringstmöglicher Dicke.

mehr

Den „Award of Excellence“ für eine besonders herausragende Dissertation verlieh das Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft und Forschung (BMWF) Eduard Gilli für seine Dissertation zu Entwicklung von Analysemethoden für Faser Bindungen in Papier

mehr

Die elektronischen Bauelemente der Zukunft sollen schneller, leistungsfähiger und vor allem immer kleiner sein. Die langfristige Vision der ultimativen Miniaturisierung sind einzelne Moleküle, die elektrisch leiten und schalten. Um dieser Vision näher zu kommen, müssen die Wechselwirkungen und physikalischen Eigenschaften von Molekülen im Detail erforscht werden. David Egger, Dissertant am Institut für Festkörperphysik der TU Graz, hat genau das getan und ist dabei auf ein interessantes Phänomen gestoßen: Im Kollektiv verhalten sich die chemischen Bauteile nicht als „Einzelkämpfer“, sondern arbeiten zusammen. Die Forschungsarbeit, die der junge Wissenschafter in Kooperation mit Kollegen der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin verfasste, wurde kürzlich im renommierten Fachjournal „Advanced Materials“ publiziert.

Zur Originalarbeit „ Polarity Switching of Charge Transport and Thermoelectricity in Self-Assembled Monolayer Devices“: doi: 10.1002/adma.201200872

On October 5, 2012 the institute made an excursion to the electronic components manufacturer EPCOS. We toured the facilities where they produce multilayer ceramic components, including piezo actuators.

EPCOS

Physical Review B maintains a collection of visually attractive images that convey important scientific information. This collection is called the Kaleidoscope Images. In August 2012, one of the images from Film of para-hexaphenyl on a sputtered mica surface, L. Tumbek, C. Gleichweit, K. Zojer, and A. Winkler, Phys. Rev. B 86, 085402 (2012) was selected for this collection.

In a collaboration between the Institute of Solid State Physics in Graz and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, David Egger, Ferdinand Rissner, Egbert Zojer and Georg Heimel recently published an article in Advanced Materials.

Using density-functional theory based electronic structure and transport calculations it was shown that self-assembled monolayer devices can exhibit drastically different charge-transport characteristics and thermoelectric properties despite being composed of molecules with virtually identical frontier-orbital energies. This finding was rationalized by the collective electrostatic action of local intramolecular dipoles in otherwise nonpolar molecules and reveals new opportunities for the design of functional molecular building blocks.

IRIS Adlershof Scientific Highlight

Original Article in Advanced Materials

Egbert Zojer has been appointed to the editorial board of the research journal Advanced Functional Materials. This journal reports breakthrough research in all aspects of materials science, including nanotechnology, chemistry, physics, and biology.

Advanced Functional Materials Editorial Board

Oliver Hofmann was awarded an FWF Schrödinger Fellowship. These fellowships fund the stay of Austrian scientists at leading foreign research institutions. When the scientists return, they bring critical research skills to Austria. Hofmann will spend two years as a postdoc at the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin and then return for one year as a postdoc to the TU Graz.

In organic electronics, charge injection layers (CILs) are commonly
added between the inorganic electrode and the active organic material to
optimize charge injection (respectively extraction) barriers and exciton
lifetimes in organic light emitting devices (OLEDs) or photovoltaic
cells (OPVs). Most studies in this field have focused on the effect of
the CIL on the effective work function on the substrate. The question
how CILs affect the morphology of subsequently deposited organic
material and what the effect on eventual charge transfer processes is
remains open. Therefore, a density functional theory study based on
advanced exchange-correlation functionals (including hybrid and
non-local functionals), as well as many-body perturbation theory, such
as the /GW/ approach and the random-phase-approximation (RPA),is
proposed in which the influence of various CILs on the morphology and
electronic levels of the active organic material is analyzed for the
example of different combinations of CILs and prototypical organic
materials adsorbed on zinc oxide substrates. In collaboration with
experimental partners, the mechanisms of bonding and interface dipole
formation at technologically relevant interfaces will be investigated.

In collaboration with the Fritz Haber Institute in Berlin, Egbert Zojer has published an article in Physical Review Letters about organic molecules on metal surfaces.

The accurate description of van der Waals interactions is one of the central challenges for density functional theory that hampers its applicability to weakly interacting systems. A possibility to account for such interactions is to sum over pair potentials, where a central problem for metal/organic interfaces is, how the actual metallic polarizability can be accounted for. This problem has recently been overcome by combining dispersion-corrected density-functional theory with the Lifshitz-Zaremba-Kohn theory for the nonlocal Coulomb screening within the bulk. This method allows the calculation of adsorption geometries for a number of interfaces at an unprecedented level of quality at very low additional computational costs and, therefore, holds a high promise for lifting the simulation of metal-organic interfaces "to the next level".

PRL 108, 146103 (2012)

Two publications recently appeared in Advanced Materials from the x-ray diffraction team headed by Roland Resel. They are experts on determining how molecules arrange themselves in thin films.

Substrate-Induced Crystal Plastic Phase of a Discotic Liquid Crystal
A new phase of a known discotic liquid crystal is observed at the interface with a rigid substrate. The structure of the substrate-induced phase has been characterized by atomic force microscopy, specular X-ray diffraction, and small-angle and wide-angle grazing incidence X-ray diffraction. The substrate-induced phase, which has a thickness of ~30 nm and a tetragonal symmetry, differs notably from the bulk phase. The occurrence of such phase casts a new light on alignment of discotic liquid crystals.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adma.201103739

Solution-Processable Septithiophene Monolayer Transistor
Septithiophene with endgroups designed to form liquid crystalline phases and allows controlled deposition of an electrically connected monolayer. Field effect mobilies mobilities of charge carriers and spectroscopic properties of the monolayer provide evidence of sustainable transport and delocalization of the excitation through intermolecular interactions within the layer.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adma.201103522

In einem steirischen Großprojekt wurden organische Sensoren zur Onlinekontrolle von Luft, Wasser oder Lebensmitteln entwickelt - Sie ermöglichen flexible, maßgeschneiderte und billige Technologien.

Zum Abschluss des Verbundprojekt Isotec (Integrated Organic Sensor and Optoelectronic Technologies) im April haben die 20 von Joanneum Research und dem NanoTecCenter Weiz koordinierten Partner aus Forschung und Industrie die Früchte ihrer siebenjährigen Arbeit präsentiert, darunter 30 Patente und 15 Preise.

der Standard, 03. April 2012

David Egger was honored by the Styrian government for his work on organic semiconductors with the "Young Researcher Award for Simulation and Modelling 2011." He received the prize for quantum mechanical simulations of the behavior of organic molecules on metal surfaces that were described in his master thesis. The research was performed in collaboration with the Humboldt-University in Berlin.

Computersimulation und -Modellierungsprojekte ausgezeichnet, Kleine Zeitung, 1.12.2011

Land zeichnete Simulationsforscher aus, ORF Steiermark, 1.12.2011

A winterschool on self-assembly within thin films, the basic properties of organic hybrid structures, and their devices will be held March 3rd - March 9th, 2012 at the Universitäts-Sportheim Planneralm, Donnersbach, Austria. The workshop organizer is Roland Resel.

http://www.if.tugraz.at/ws2012/

On November 4, 2011, the institute made an excursion to the semiconductor manufacturer Austriamicrosystems. We had a tour of the fabrication facilities. After the tour we went to the Buschenschank Wieser in Gundersdorf.

www.austriamicrosystems.com

An article written by Georg Heimel, Lorenz Romaner, Jean-Luc Brédas, and Egbert Zojer was the most cited article in the journal Surface Science in the period 2005 - 2010.

Georg Heimel, Lorenz Romaner, Jean-Luc Brédas, Egbert Zojer, Organic/metal interfaces in self-assembled monolayers of conjugated thiols: A first-principles benchmark study, Surface Science, Volume 600, pp. 4548-4562 (2006).

Emil J. W. List and Norbert Koch were the guess editors of an Optics Express Focus Issue on organic light-emitting diodes. They reviewed the status quo and described the current developments.

"Focus Issue: Organic light-emitting diodes–status quo and current developments," Opt. Express 19, A1237-A1240 (2011)

Die Erfindung „Optische Anordnung für spektroskopische Infrarot-Ellipsometrie“ von E. Gilli, M. Kornschober und R. Schennach wurde im Jahr 2009 mit dem PRIZE Award ausgezeichnet. Damit wurde der Bau eines Prototyps ermöglicht. Schon während des Baus konnte die Firma Anton Paar als Partner für eine internationale Patentanmeldung (PCT) gewonnen werden. Darauf hin wurde das Projekt im Herbst 2010 bei Houska Preis der B&C Provatstiftung eingereicht.
Die spektroskopische Infrarot-Ellipsometrie ist insbesondere im Feld der Charakterisierung und Qualitätssicherung von Dünnschichtsystemen in ihrer Präzision und Mächtigkeit unerreicht, da hier mit einer einzigen Messung in sehr hoher Empfindlichkeit sowohl die chemische Zusammensetzung der überprüften Schichten, als auch die Schichtdicken, die Oberflächenrauigkeit und andere geometrische Parameter überprüft werden können.
Die Idee für das Projekt wurde durch die Untersuchung zellulosischer Dünnschichtsysteme im Christian Doppler Labor für oberflächenphysikalische und chemische Grundlagen der Papierfestigkeit motiviert, in welchem die Firmen Mondi, Lenzing AG und Kelheim Fibres GmbH als Industriepartner mit der TU Graz und der Uni Leoben zusammenarbeiten. Die Spektroskopische Infrarot-Ellipsometrie ist erst seit wenigen Jahren kommerziell verfügbar (erste Fachpublikationen ab 2003). In enger Zusammenarbeit mit der TU Graz wird Anton Paar sein Portfolio an Analysegeräten im Röntgen-, Spektroskopie- und Rheologiebereich nun mit Infrarot-Ellipsometrie ergänzen.
Das Projekt würde von der B&C Privatstiftung mit einem Anerkennungspreis in der Höhe von € 5.000,00 ausgezeichnet.

Am 7.12.2010 hat Hartmut Kalhert einen Vortrag gehalten in der Reihe "Nachhaltige Entwicklungen an der TU Graz und ihre Initiatoren".

Zusammenfassung

A one-day symposium on computer models of advanced materials was held at the TU Graz on May 2, 2011. Solving the quantum equations that describe how atoms and molecules combine into solids is one of the most difficult computational problems known. The participants at this workshop discussed different methods to attack this problem. The approximations used have to be changed as the volume of material involved in the simulation grows. The symposium was organized by Egbert Zojer and funded by SIMNET Styria.

The TU Graz Research Journal produced a special issue on Advanced Materials Science.

Research 2010-2|Nr. 4

Physiker der TU Graz haben auf Basis einer quantenmechanschen Simulation Antworten auf grundlegende Fragen zur Änderung von Grenzflächeneigenschaften von Elektrodenmaterianlien mit organischen Molekülen gefunden.

Artikel in die Presse

The Austrian Newspaper die Presse published an article about how organic semiconductors can be used to make sensors, displays, and solar cells.

The article in die Presse

David Egger receives one of the prestigious 3 year DOC fellowships by the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Within his project "Applying Green’s function techniques to interfaces between self-assembled monolayers and noble metals" David will continue his investigation of metal/organic interfaces and devices he started with Georg Heimel from HU Berlin in the course of his master's thesis. As a long term goal several ways to conquer the notorious shortcomings of common density functional approximations shall also be analyzed. Since August 2009 David is a member of Egbert Zojer's group at the Institute of Solid State Physics. He finished his master's study in April 2010.

An article in the Austrian newspaper der Standard describes the research on paper strength that is being performed at the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Paper Strength. This is a collaboration between the TU Graz and the Montan University in Leoben.

The article in der Standard.

We proudly announce that 2011 Nano and Photonics will be jointly organised with
4th European Conference on Applications of Femtosecond Lasers in Materials Science

14th - 18th of March 2011
Mauterndorf / Salzburg
Austria

www.nanoandphotonics.at

The insertion of a thin photoacid generator layer between the dielectric and the active layer in organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) allows control of the threshold voltage through UV illumination by means of interfacial channel doping. All p-type organic inverters can be realized by combining an OTFT working in depletion mode and one operating in enhancement mode.

Tuning the Threshold Voltage in Organic Thin-Film Transistors by Local Channel Doping Unsing Photoreactive Interfacial Layers, M. Marchl, M. Edler, B. Stadlober, A. Haase, A. Fian, G. Trimmel, T. Griesser, E. Zojer, Advanced Materials (2010)

Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) play an ever increasing role in organic and molecular electronics. Consequently, there is a high interest in an in-depth understanding of their intrinsic electronic properties as a prerequisite for future developments. The current Progress Report summarizes recent efforts in the area of computational modeling of SAMs geared at developing a clear understanding of the relationship between the chemical structure of the SAM-forming molecules and the electronic properties of the monolayer.

G. Heimel, F. Rissner, E. Zojer, "Modeling the electronic properties of Pi-conjugated self-assembled monolayers", Progress Report, Advanced Materials 22, 2494 (2010).

Charge-transfer monolayers hold a high potential for modifying carrier-injection properties of electrodes in organic electronics. A particular promising molecule in this context is HATCN. The electronic properties of HATCN on Au(111), however, display a very unexpected dependence on film thickness with a work-function increase setting in only for films thicker than 3 Angstrom. In a study joining groups from Berlin, Graz, Mainz, and Groningen, this peculiar behavior could be clarified by combining various experimental techniques with quantum-mechanical modeling. It was attributed to an unprecedented complete change in the film structure with layer thickness.

B. Bröker, O. T. Hofmann, G.M. Rangger, P. Frank, R. P. Blum, R. Rieger, Luc Venema, A. Vollmer, K. Müllen, J. P. Rabe, A. Winkler, P. Rudolf, E. Zojer, and N. Koch, "Density dependent reorientation of chemisorbed conjugated molecules allows controlling interface electronic structure", Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 246805 (2010).

Circuits such as a seven stage ring oscillator and a four bit code generator were built using self-assembled monolayer field effect transistors (SAMFETs) grown on a polymer surface. This demonstrates the feasibility of using SAMFETs on flexible substrates.

Fatemeh Gholamrezaie, Simon G. J. Mathijssen, Edsger C. P. Smits, Tom C. T. Geuns, Paul A. van Hal, Sergei A. Ponomarenko, Heinz-Georg Flesch, Roland Resel, Eugenio Cantatore, Paul W. M. Blom and Dago M. de Leeuw, Ordered Semiconducting Self-Assembled Monolayers on Polymeric Surfaces Utilized in Organic Integrated Circuits, Nano Lett. 10, pp 1998–2002, (2010).

Mit der Research 2010 wird das in Österreich einzigartige Projekt einer Präsentationsplattform für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Innovation am 11. und 12. Juni 2010 in der Halle A der Messe Graz über die Bühne gehen.

www.researchaustria.at

Poster Institut für Festkörperphysik

The Physics Brochure 2009 summarizes the achievements of the Physics Institutes at the TU Graz in 2009.

pdf

Organic Light Emitting Diodes (OLEDs) are a promising technology for the next generation of fullcolor-flat-panel displays and lighting applications. A new material for OLEDs has been developed by a team from the Max-Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz and the NanoTecCenter in Weiz. The pyrene based material emits blue-turquoise light with a maximum in the electroluminescence at 465 nm.

Teresa M. Figueira-Duarte, Pablo G. Del Rosso, Roman Trattnig, Stefan Sax, Emil J. W. List, and Klaus Müllen, Designed Suppression of Aggregation in Polypyrene: Toward High-Performance Blue-Light-Emitting Diodes, Adv. Mater. 21 pp. ?? (2009)

An international winter school on the fundamental properties of organic devices (sensors, transistors, and solar cells) is being organized by Prof. Roland Resel for the Austrian Research Project Cluster "Interface Controlled and Functionalized Organic Films." This is a network of scientific groups from Austria, which are working together to perform joint research on basic science of organic thin films and their application in organic electronics. The winterschool will be focused on device physics, contributions on that topic will be preferably selected as short lectures.

http://www.if.tugraz.at/ws2010/

The Austrian ministry of economics (BMWFJ) awarded a prototype PRIZE to researchers in the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Paper Strength. €113000 was awarded to build a prototype of an ellipsometry insert for an infrared spectrometer. The insert was designed by Eduard Gilli, Robert Schennach, and Martin Kornschober.

The 8th International Symposium on Functional π-Electron Systems was voted one of the five best scientific conference in Graz in 2008. This was the only conference which was held at the TU Graz which won an award. The conference took place from July 21st to 25th, 2008 and was organized by Prof. Emil List.

Congress Awards Graz

The Institute of Solid State Physics won a €3000 prize for being one of the three most inventive institutes at the TU Graz. The prize was awarded at Erfindertag on Nov. 6, 2009.

The mobility of self-assembled monolayer field-effect transistors (SAMFETs) traditionally decreases dramatically with increasing channel length. Recently, however, SAMFETs using liquid-crystalline molecules have been shown to have bulk-like mobilities that are virtually independent of channel length. Here, we reconcile these scaling relations by showing that the mobility in liquid crystalline SAMFETs depends exponentially on the channel length only when the monolayer is incomplete. We explain this dependence both numerically and analytically, and show that charge transport is not affected by carrier injection, grain boundaries or conducting island size. At partial coverage, that is when the monolayer is incomplete, liquid-crystalline SAMFETs thus form a unique model system to study size-dependent conductance originating from charge percolation in two dimensions.

Monolayer coverage and channel length set the mobility in self-assembled monolayer field-effect transistors, S. G. J. Mathijssen, E. C. P. Smits, P. A. van Hal, H. J. Wondergem, S. A. Ponomarenko, A. Moser, R. Resel, P. A. Bobbert, M. Kemerink, R. A. J. Janssen, D. M. de Leeuw, Nature Nanotechnology (2009).

Die Presse

OE1 Wissenaktuell Aussendung, 10 August 2009, mp3

The ultimate miniaturization of electronics would be to use single molecules as electronic components. In a recent Nanoletters article, a team from M.I.T., Humbolt University, Montan University, Georgia Tech, and the TU Graz, explain why exchanging a single carbon atom with a nitrogen atom in certain molecules increases the electrical conductivity of the molecules by more than two orders of magnitude. The results provide clear guidelines for the rational design of single-molecule metals and highly doped single-molecule semiconducting devices. This is important for the development of bio-compatible interfaces between inorganic and organic matter. The image visualizes the transport channel in one of the studied molecules, a boron doped dithiol derivative of pyrene where the thiol groups are separated from the π-conjugated core by a methylene (i.e., -CH2-) spacer.

Doping Molecular Wires, Georg Heimel, Egbert Zojer, Lorenz Romaner, Jean-Luc Bredas, and Francesco Stellacci, Nanoletters (2009) doi:10.1021/nl9006613

Die Kleine Zeitung
APA Zukunftwissen
www.uni-protokolle.de
www.pressrelations.de
Die Presse

On October 1^st the Advanced Materials Science research cluster (Field of Expertise) will hold Materials Day. Recent research results in materials science will be presented by graduate students of the university. At the end of the day, Prof. Jürgen Rödel will give an invited lecture on the Development of new lead-free piezoceramics.

9:00 - 18:30 HS 224, Stremayrgasse 16

Materials Day Program

A one day NAWI-Graz workshop will be held Friday June 26, at the Seifenfabrik in Graz. The workshop is planned for both supervisors and PhD students of the NAWI-Graz doctoral schools. It includes two plenary sessions and nine focus sessions, covering a wide variety of research topics from nanoscience to systems biology (see list of sessions below). A number of outstanding scientists from other universities have been invited and will complement the list of speakers from both the Karl-Franzens University and the Graz University of Technology.

Date: Friday, June 26 2009
Time: 9.00 – 20.00
Venue: Seifenfabrik Veranstaltungszentrum, Angergasse 41- 43, 8010 Graz

Program

An article on a new method for nanostructure formation from conjugated polymers appeared on the December 2008 inside cover of Soft Matter. An aqueous dispersion of semiconducting polymer nanospheres (SPNs) was deposited by inkjet printing onto a polymer surface patterned by soft embossing. By interaction between the spheres and the undulated surface a self assembly process is triggered, resulting in the formation of SPN nanostructures determined by the template. Both template layer and assembled SPNs can be incorporated into a device structure. We demonstrate a light emitting structure for use in polymer light emitting devices including analyses by atomic force microscopy and Kelvin probe force microscopy.

Printing functional nanostructures: a novel route towards nanostructuring of organic electronic devices via soft embossing, inkjet printing and colloidal self assembly of semiconducting polymer nanospheres, Evelin Fisslthaler, Alexander Blümel, Katharina Landfester, Ullrich Scherf and Emil J. W. List, Soft Matter, 2008, 4, 2448, DOI: 10.1039/b812235k

An image of an organic transistor made at the Institute of Solid State Physics, TU Graz appears on the inside cover of the July 7 issue of Advanced Materials. The image background shows an elemental map of a cross-section through an organic thin-film transistor containing a chemically reactive interfacial layer, as determined by energy-filtered transmission electron microscopy. The layout of the device (shown in the foreground) allows the realization of a transistor whose threshold voltage can be shifted by up to 60 volts upon exposure to ammonia switching its mode of operation from depletion to enhancement.


Peter Pacher, Alexandra Lex, Veronika Proschek, Harald Etschmaier, Elena Tchernychova, Meltem Sezen, Ullrich Scherf, Werner Grogger, Gregor Trimmel, Christian Slugovc, and Egbert Zojer, Chemical Control of Local Doping in Organic Thin-Film Transistors: From Depletion to Enhancement, Advanced Materials 20 pp. 3143–3148 (2008).

Pressemitteilung der TU-Graz
derStandard.at
pressetext austria
pro-physik.de
chemie.de

On July 16 2008, the institute made an excursion to the scientific instrument maker Anton Paar.

www.anton-paar.com

A research team from The Netherlands, Austria, Russia, and Germany announced a breakthrough in the development of organic electronic integrated circuits in the October 16, 2008 issue of the journal Nature. Self-Assembled Monolayer Field Effect Transistors (SAMFETs) were used to build circuits including a 15-bit code generator consisting of over 300 transistors. A critical layer of the SAMFETs consisted of a single molecular layer of quinquethiophene molecules which self-assembled into an ordered two-dimensional crystal. Although they are not as small or as fast as state-of-the-art silicon transistors, the self-assembly of molecules into useful devices is considered the ultimate technology for mass production and this is an important demonstration of how self-assembly can be used in the fabrication of a complex circuit. Organic transistors such as this are most useful in applications where transistors are distributed over a large area such as they are in a display.

Oliver Werzer and Roland Resel of the Institute of Solid State Physics, TU Graz measured the degree of ordering of the molecules in the thin organic layer. This was done by shining an intense beam of x-rays on the molecular layer and observing the resulting diffraction peaks. The European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble was used to generate the x-rays.

C. P. Smits et al., Bottom-up organic integrated circuits, Nature 455, pp. 956-959 (2008)

Prof. Emil List won the award for the best project development at the 4th Global Plastic Electronics Conference on October 28, 2008 in Berlin. The award cited his work on organic optoelectronics and sensors.

www.plastic-electronics.org

Evelin Fisslthaler won the 2008 Nano Youth Award of the Austrian Federal Ministry of Transport, Innovation and Technology. The award is given for excellent research in the field of nanoscience and nanotechnology.

Peter Pacher and Daniel Koller shared the 2008 ESG-Nano-Prize awarded by the Erwin Schrödinger Society for Nanoscience. Peter Pacher recently finished his PhD on organic electronic devices at the Institute of Solid State Physics. Daniel Koller is a graduate student at the Karl Franzens University working on plasmonic devices.

In the July 3, 2008 issue of Science magazine, a team from the Montan University in Leoben and the TU Graz explained the growth of ordered thin films of parahexaphenyl. When molecules of parahexaphenyl are evaporated on clean a clean mica surface, the molecules form crystalline needles. Within the needles the molecules are ordered in straight rows with the molecules lying flat on the mica surface.

An atomic force microscope image showing parahexaphenyl needles on mica.

The chemical structure of parahexaphenyl.

When the surface of the mica is bombarded with ions before the parahexaphenyl is deposited, the molecules stand up on the surface. Islands of the molecules have a stepped structure where the steps are one molecule high.

A scanning tunneling microscope image of parahexaphenyl islands.

The form of the island is partially determined by the difficulty that the molecules have in diffusing over the edges of the steps. The energy barrier that the molecules must overcome to go over a step is known as the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier. Numerical simulations show that the molecules bend when they go over a step edge. The energy it takes to bend the molecules is an important contribution to the Ehrlich-Schwoebel barrier.

An animation of a molecule diffusing over a step edge.

Gregor Hlawacek, Peter Puschnig, Paul Frank, Adolf Winkler, Claudia Ambrosch-Draxl, Christian Teichert: 'Characterization of Step-Edge Barriers in Organic Thin-Film Growth', Science 321 p. 108 (2008).

chemie.de

Solid state and materials research news: phys. stat. sol. (RRL) 4/2008

Ferdinand Rissner won the 2008 Poster Prize at the 58th meeting of the Austrian Physical Society in Leoben for his contribution with the title,

SAM-Induced Modification of Electrode Workfunction and Energy-Level Alignment at the Interface between Organic Semiconductors

A new Christian Doppler Laboratory for Surface Science Investigations on Paper Strength will investigate the strength of fiber – fiber bonds in paper. The surface morphology as well as the surface chemistry will be investigated using a collaborative approach. The laboratory head is Prof. Robert Schennach from the Institute of Solid State Physics, Graz University of Technology. Close collaboration with Prof. Wolfgang Bauer from the Institute of Paper Pulp and Fiber Technology, Graz University of Technology and with Prof. Christian Teichert from the Institute of Physics, University of Leoben will enable a simultaneous investigation of the fiber morphology and the surface and interface chemistry. The industrial partner is Mondi Packaging in Frantschach.

Christian Doppler Laboratory for Surface Chemical and Physical Fundamentals of Paper Strength

Video from the ORF program Newton.

Hightech für Papier, Kleine Zeitung, 4 März 2007.

Papiersackerln unter der Lupe, Kurier, 4 März 2007.

Starke Fasern: TU-Forscherinnen und -Forscher prüfen Festigkeit von Papier

Was Papier stark macht, Siemens Hi!Tech magazin, number 2/2007.

Prof. Günther Leising gave a keynote lecture at the Alpbach Forum on basic research and applications in materials science.

Alpbach News

www.alpbach.org

Mit der PI-LED-Technik will Lumitech die künstliche Beleuchtung revolutionieren. Treibende Kraft der Firma ist der Gründer und Grazer Physiker Günther Leising.

Die PI-LED-Technologie, die von Lumitech entwickelt wurde, vereint die positiven Eigenschaften verschiedener LED-Systeme in sich. Eine hohe Lebensdauer und Effizienz gehen mit Farbtreue, Dimmbarkeit und einer verstellbaren Farbtemperatur.

Wirtschaftsblatt: Lumitech krempelt die Lichttechnik um

Ohne den Rat erfahrener Manager geht halt nichts

Lumitech kontert Stromfressern mit LEDs

A3 Volt: An LED führt kein Weg vorbei

Joint Meeting of: 9th Multinational Congress on Microscopy 2009 & Dreiländertagung 2009

30 August - 4 September 2009

Convention Center Graz, Austria

The Microscopy Conference 2009 in Graz is joining together the "Multinational Congress on Microscopy" and the "Dreiländertagung" both having established a strong reputation as key events in the European and international microscopy communities. MC 2009 will continue this successful tradition in Graz, a city in the centre of Europe that has a long history in science, engineering and culture.

The scientific programme of MC 2009 will comprise plenary lectures, symposia, poster presentations, and tutorials. A high quality Trade Exhibition will be a main part of MC 2009 with a mixture of exhibits and technical workshops to enable delegates to interact with vendors and witness the latest developments in microscopy in the physical and life sciences, and nanotechnology.

It is our aim to encourage the participation of young scientists; therefore several fellowships will be offered and the conference fee for students will be below € 100,–.

There will be poster prize awards in different scientific fields.

Austrian Society for Electron Microscopy
Croatian Microscopy Society
Czechoslovak Microscopy Society
German Society for Electron Microscopy
Hungarian Society for Microscopy
Italian Society of Microscopical Sciences
Serbian Society for Microscopy
Slovene Society for Microscopy
Swiss Society for Optics and Microscopy

Einen deutlichen Fokus auf das steirische Stärkefeld Nanotechnologie wollen die TU Graz und das Joanneum Research (JR) setzen. Dazu gründeten die beiden Grazer Forschungseinrichtungen nun die "Nano Tec Center Weiz Forschungsgesellschaft mbH" (NTC Weiz GmbH). Baubeginn für die Einrichtung der Gesellschaft im oststeirischen Weiz ist Ende April. Erste Forschungsprojekte sollen Ende 2007 an den Start gehen.

Von Lebensmittel-, Raumluft- und Arbeitssicherheits-Überwachung bis hin zu medizinischen Schnelltests für den Notfall reicht das Anwendungsspektrum der Sensor- und Bauelemente, die in der neuen NTC Weiz GmbH entwickelt werden sollen. Die TU Graz und das JR hatten ihre ohnehin traditionelle Zusammenarbeit durch einen im Jahr 2004 verabschiedeten Kooperationsvertrag zusätzlich gestärkt. Nun gründeten die beiden Forschungseinrichtungen am 28. Februar die NTC Weiz GmbH, um "die Steiermark noch deutlicher als bisher ins Zentrum einer entscheidenden Schlüsseltechnologie des 21. Jahrhunderts zu rücken", wie die TU am Montag bekannt gab.

Neue Anwendungsbereiche in Optoelektronik, Sensorik und Nanoanalytik sollen technologisch und wirtschaftlich erschlossen werden, so die beiden Geschäftsführer Helmut Wiedenhofer (JR) und Emil List (TU). Dazu soll die NTC Weiz auch mit internationalen Unternehmen zusammenarbeiten. Geplant sind Aktivitäten wie die Abwicklung von Forschungsprojekten über Dienstleistungen wie Test-, Mess- oder Prüfaufträge bis hin zur gemeinsam mit Firmen durchgeführten Prozess- und Produktentwicklung. Technologie-Coaching für Industriebetriebe und klein- und mittelständische Unternehmen soll einen weiteren Schwerpunkt des Weizer Nanocenters bilden.

Ab Mai wird an einem zweiten Weizer Energie- und Innovationszentrum gebaut. "Bis Ende November soll der Rohbau stehen und bis März bezugsfertig sein", so List. Auf 940 Quadratmetern werden Büro- und Laborräume angesiedelt sein. Erste Forschungsprojekte in den neuen Räumlichkeiten sollen Ende 2007 bzw. längstens Anfang 2008 starten. Die laufende Vorfeldforschung, die bis zur Übersiedelung ins neue Gebäude weiter an der TU Graz bzw. in Räumen der JR im "Weizer Energie- und Innovationszentrum I" durchgeführt wird, werde einen "fliegenden Start" ermöglichen, erklärte List. 15 bis 20 Mitarbeiter sollen in Zukunft dort arbeiten.

Die Kosten für die Infrastruktur belaufen sich auf drei Mio. Euro, die zu 50 Prozent aus EU-Regionalförderungsmittel und zu je 25 Prozent vom Zukunftsfonds des Landes Steiermark und aus Eigenmitteln der Gesellschafter kommen.

Nano and Photonics Mauterndorf 2009
Date: 11^th - 13^th of March 2009
Mauterndorf / Salzburg
Austria

The purpose of this event is to organise an informal meeting for those, who are interested in photonic applications of modern nanotechnology.

One goal of this event is to create an Austrian wide discussion platform for state of the art work in basic research done at the various universities as well as industrial based research and development.

The location, Castle Mauterndorf, provides an ideal environment to discuss the entire range of topics without any pressure of time, particularly between the morning and afternoon sessions as well as in the evening.

Another goal is to give young students the possibility to present their work in the form of talks or poster presentation. With this orientation, the Nano and Photonics Seminar tries to go on with the long tradition of the Mauterndorf LASERSEMINARS.

Nanotechnology as a crossover technology enables application based product- and system innovations in different industries and obtains worldwide importance in driving the economy.

Nanophotonics is an area of nanotechnology of growing importance where breakthrough results in the development of devices and material systems are reported on a day-to-day basis. The seminars are spanning their topics from light emitting devices based on inorganic and organic semiconductors, over theoretical aspects of photonics to the point of photonics structures and structuring techniques.

http://www.nanoandphotonics.at/

Scope of the International Symposium Fπ8

The 8th symposium will continue the tradition and bring together chemists, physicists and engineers to discuss recent developments in the field of π-conjugated matter. The technical program will include plenary lectures, invited lectures, oral and poster presentations of the contributed technical papers on

* Synthesis of functional π-electron materials,
* Functions (biological, chemical, physical, etc.),
* Processing and fabrication,
* Structure (bulk, surface/interface),
* Properties (electronic, biological, mechanical, etc.),
* Applications (OLEDs, OPVs, OTFTs, sensors, NLO, etc.) and
* Industrial aspects of π-electron materials.

Strongly electron poor molecules can be used to continuously tune the charge carrier injection barriers in organic semiconductor devices. Combining experimental (UPS and XSW) and computational (band-structure) investigations enables an in-depth fundamental understanding of charge transfer processes and geometric distortions at the metal/organic interface. These aspects are discussed by Lorenz Romaner et al. in a recent publication in Physical Review Letters.

News summary in SPIE

ESRF spotlight on science

The article in PRL

Günther Leising was awarded the Austrian Innovation Prize for his development of organic light emitting diodes.

Article in the Kleine Zeitung

Ein zukünftiger Bildschirm auf SAM-Basis wird einem Blatt Papier ähneln, falt- und rollbar sein, bei geringem Energieverbrauch hervorragende bildqualität bieten und leichtgewichtig sein.

Organisches Wachstum von FWF Jahresbericht

FWF Jahresbericht 2007

Die von Bundespräsident Dr.Heinz Fischer verliehene hohe Bundesauszeichnung wurde Prof. Kahlert am 10.12.2007 im Rahmen eines Festaktes im Weißen Saal der Grazer Burg von Landeshauptmann Mag. Franz Voves überreicht. In seiner Laudation ging der Landeshauptmann auf das vielfältige Engagement von Prof. Kahlert ein: Er war zwei Mal Rektor der Technischen Universität Graz, treibt aktiv die Gründung einer Technischen Universität in der pakistanischen Stadt Lahore voran und engagiert sich intensiv in der Christian Doppler Forschungsgesellschaft.

TUG Print Artikel

CDG gratuliert Hartmut Kahlert zur hohen Auszeichnung

Surface plasmons are waves that appear at the surface of a metal. Light and electrons are coupled in these waves such that the light intensity and electron density go up and down together. Surface plasmon devices that process optical signals can be smaller than ordinary optical devices since the wavelength of the plasmons is shorter than the wavelength of light.

Together with our NAWI partners at the Karl Franzens University and the Nanoteccenter Weiz, organic light emitting diodes were used to investigate the light emitting properties of surface plasmon modes.

D. M. Koller, A. Hohenau, H. Ditlbacher, N. Galler, F. R. Aussenegg, A. Leitner, J. R. Krenn, S. Eder, S. Sax, and E. J. W. List, Surface plasmon coupled electroluminescent emission, Applied Physics Letters 92, 103304 (2008).

Inkjet-printed photodetectors operating at wavelengths up to 3 μm were made using HgTe nanocrystals. Detectors operate in a spectral region of particular importance for biological applications, remote sensing and night-vision imaging. A room temperature detectivity of D* = 3.2 × 10¹⁰ cm Hz^1/2W^–1 close to the important telecommunication wavelength region was observed.
This work was performed by Prof. W. Heiss, Dr. M. Böberl, M. V. Kovalenko of the Institute for Semiconductor and Solid State Physics, University Linz together with Dr. S. Gamerith, Prof. E. J. W. List from the Christian Doppler Laboratory for Advanced Functional Materials and the Institute of Solid State Physics, TU Graz.

Media reports about this result:
ORF Magazin
Der Standard
Pressetext
Wallstreet Online
Scinexx, Das Wissensmagazin
IW online


The original article:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adma.200700111

Photos of the excursion

A winter school on the role of interfaces in organic electronics will be held January 26th – January 31st, 2008 in Planneralm, Donnersbach, Austria.

The conference organizers are:

Egbert Zojer, Roland Resel - TU Graz
N. Koch - HU Berlin

http://www.if.tugraz.at/ws2008/

Surface scientists at the Institute of Solid State Physics study chemical reactions that take place on the surface of metals. The metals often act as catalysts that increase the rate of chemical reactions. In a recent article, E. Demirci, J. Stettner, M. Kratzer, R. Schennach, and A. Winkler studied the reactions of the methanol, a biofuel, on copper surfaces.

E. Demirci, J. Stettner, M. Kratzer, R. Schennach, and A. Winkler, Methanol adsorption on Cu(110) and the angular distribution, The Journal of Chemical Physics 126, 164710 (2007)

The 8th International Symposium on Functional Π-Electron Systems will be held from July 21st to 25th, 2008 in Graz, Austria. The symposium brings together chemists, physicists and engineers to discuss recent developments in the field of Π-conjugated matter. The technical program will include plenary lectures, invited lectures, oral and posters of the contributed technical papers on:

• Synthesis of functional Π-electron materials
• Functions (biological, chemical, physical, etc.)
• Processing and fabrications
• Structure (bulk, surface/interface)
• Properties (electronic, biological, mechanical, etc.)
• Applications (OLEDs, OPVs, OTFTs, sensors, NLO, etc.)
• Industrial aspects of π-electron materials

The Institute of Solid State Physics participates in the Key Research Area of Advanced Materials Science. A new website was recently launched to describe the activities in materials science taking place at the TU Graz.

Advanced Materials Science Website

A description of Advanced Material Science at the TU Graz. (German)

A recent article in the Siemens Hi!Tech magazine (number 2/2007) describes the research that professor Robert Schennach is performing to understand what gives paper its strength.



Was Papier stark macht (German)

The charge transport in organic thin film transistors (OTFTs) occurs in a very thin layer in the immediate vicinity of the interface between the active material and the dielectric. By modifying that interface, the concentration and transport of the charge carriers can be controlled and if chemo-responsive this allows the realization of sensors.

In September 2006, Peter Hadley became a professor in the Institute of Solid State Physics, TU Graz. He received a PhD in Applied Physics from Stanford University in 1989 and then became an assistant professor and later
associate professor at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. In Graz, he is setting up a laboratory to characterize the electrical properties of nanostructures.

Read the complete story in the TUG Research Journal

A National Research Network (NFN) with the title „Interface Controlled
and Functionalised Organic Films“ is funded by the Austrian Science
Foundation. The subject is related to organic electronics which
is currently under intensive investigation in basic science as well as in
industry. The scientific topic of the NFN is the preparation and characterisation
of defined surface structures of organic molecules, the
subsequent growth of oriented organic thin films on top of it and the
use of these layers in electronic and opto-electronic devices such as
thin film transistors, light emitting devices and photovoltaic cells.

Read the report in the TUG Research Journal

In a recent article published in Nano Letters, researchers at the Institute of Solid State Physics - TU Graz, and Georgia Tech. in Atlanta describe how a single layer of organic molecules modify the surface properties of metals.

Toward Control of the Metal-Organic Interfacial Electronic Structure in Molecular Electronics: A First-Principles Study on Self-Assembled Monolayers of π-Conjugated Molecules on Noble Metals, Georg Heimel, Lorenz Romaner, Egbert Zojer, and Jean-Luc Brédas

Pictures of the excursion.

A winter school on "Interface Controlled and Functionalised Organic Films" was held at the Planneralm January 27 - February 2, 2007. The winterschool was organized for diploma and PhD students of projects, associated projects and collaboration projects of the NFN.

Pictures from the winterschool.

Information

Self-organized organic thin films have applications in lithography and sensor technology. This article describes research being done by Prof. Adolf Winkler of the Institute of Solid State Physics, TU Graz and by Prof. Michael Ramsey of the Karl Franzens University in Graz.

German text of the article.

In an interview in the journal e&i elektrotechnik und informationstechnik, Prof. Günther Leising discussed his views on research.

German text of the interview

Ao. Prof. DI Dr. Emil List from the Graz University of Technology and Prof. Dr. Franz Aussenegg from the University of Graz would like to invite scientists and studentes who are interested in photonic applications of modern nanotechnology to the Nano and Photonics Conference 2007. The conference will take place at the castle Mauterndorf in the heart of Salzburg from 14th to the 16th of March 2007.

One goal of this event is to create an Austrian wide discussion platform for state of the art work in basic reasearch done at the various universities as well as industrial based research and development.

Another goal is to give young students the possibility to present their work in the form of talks or poster presentation. With this orientation, the Nano and Photonics Seminar tries to go on with the long tradition of the Mauterndorf LASERSEMINARS.

For more information and the registration forms please have a look at the homepage: www.nanoandphotonics.at

Regards,
Ao. Prof. DI Dr. Emil List
Prof. Dr. Franz Aussenegg

Egbert Zojer of the Institute of Solid State Physics participated in a panel discussion organized by the Austrian Academy of Sciences on the flow of gifted scientists out of the Austria. Better opportunities abroad often result in the relocation of Austrian scientists to foreign countries. The panel discussed the causes and possible remedies for this trend.

Read the article about the panel discussion from Der Standard.

Researchers at Joanneum Research Institute for Nanostructured Materials and Photonics and the Institute of Solid State Physics at TU Graz developed a technique to draw three dimensional structures with a laser. At the focus of the laser a photochemical process hardens a specially designed material. Material that was not exposed to intense laser light can then be etched away leaving only the pattern drawn by the laser.

Researchers at Joanneum Research Institute for Nanostructured Materials and Photonics and the Institute of Solid State Physics at TU Graz developed a method to print an electronic circuit on ordinary newspaper. Many people believe that this kind of printable electronics will lead to cheap displays and sensors.

Ed Gerstner, Electronic paper sees the light, Nature Materials, 14 April 2005

Lamprecht B., Thünauer R., Ostermann M., Jakopic G. & Leising G., Organic photodiodes on newspaper. Physica Status Solidi A 202, R50–R52 (2005).