Projects
Interactive and Programmable Materials - IPROM
One of the core principles in the design of technical objects is the static nature of the materials: They have more or less unchangeable properties. In nature, on the other hand, the (bio-)materials used by living systems are geared towards enabling the best possible adaptation to the respective environmental conditions in order to be best react to changes in the surrounding. The aim of the Research Cluster "Interactive and Programmable Materials (IPROM)" funded by the Carl Zeiss Foundation is the development of innovative technical materials that respond to changing environmental conditions with a response, which is preprogrammed into the material and thus triggers a material adaptation to changes in the surrounding and the load conditions. In order to do so, they have to be able to change their internal structure and/or their external shape as a consequence of an external stimulus, e.g. by adapting the adhesion, wettability or mechanical properties of the materials. This concept opens up new opportunities for the production of complex objects in many areas such as optics, medical technology or architecture.
Project website: IPROM
Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems - livMatS
The vision of the Cluster of Excellence Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems (livMatS) is to combine the best of two worlds – nature and technology. livMatS develops novel, bioinspired materials systems, which adapt autonomously to their environment and harvest clean energy from it.
The purely technical, but behaviorally quasi-living materials systems that are being developed in livMatS meet people's demands for future-oriented environmental and energy technologies. Research into the acceptance and social relevance of these autonomous systems and their sustainability are thus important components of development.
To turn this vision into reality, livMatS has assembled a team composed of researchers from a broad spectrum of disciplines such as energy research, biomimetics and microsystems engineering and combines them with sustainability research, psychology and philosophy.
Project website: livMatS Research Area C
National Research Data Infrastructure for Materials Science & Materials Engineering NFDI-MatWerk
The NFDI-MatWerk consortium will focus on the research area Materials Science & Materials Engineering 405&406 of the DFG subject classification system. The digital representation of materials and their relevant process and load parameters is the central challenge. The digital transformation in materials science and materials engineering is the way there and at the same time part of the vision of the NFDI-MatWerk.
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Multiscale characterization of robust functional material systems - SCHARF
The research project investigates the relationships between structures - including defects - on atomistic, microscopic and mesoscopic size scales and the resulting macroscopically observable behavior.
Material systems of the future will consist of synthetic base materials whose properties and behavior are determined by their internal structure. However, an approach to understanding the reliability of these material systems can only be made if the initially present structural properties as well as the defects arising during the use phase can be experimentally recorded and theoretically described over all relevant size scales.
Project website: SCHARF