Center for Materials Crystallography

The Center for Materials Crystallography (CMC) was founded by the DNRF in April 2010 to establish a world leading center, partially located at the Institut für Anorganische Chemie of the Göttingen University, for fundamental materials research where strong competences in synthesis, characterization, and theoretical modelling are combined in a unique platform to tackle some of the key challenges in materials science. These include unravelling the chemical origin of molecular self-assembly, measuring excited state crystal structures, understanding the nucleation, growth and structure of nano-particles, quantifying guest-host interactions in multifunctional porous materials for gas storage or catalysis, and obtaining an atomic scale insight into complex magnetic materials. A very special aspect of CMC is to vigorously exploit the revolutionizing new opportunities becoming available at large synchrotron and neutron facilities to focus on scientific questions of great fundamental interest, where development and application of advanced structural tools are essential for meeting the challenges.

In science the molecular world is traditionally discussed in terms of ground state structures even though numerous important scientific questions revolve around molecules in excited states. Immense advances in crystallographic techniques have led to the birth of a new field, photocrystallography, where structures can be determined at the electronically excited states. This knowledge is important to design materials or devices of a required performance. For example luminescent molecules are promising materials for energy efficient light sources or sensors and photomagnetic complexes for data storage devices. The understanding of hydrogen storage materials is inevitably needed to design e. g. efficient hydrogen cars.

Second CMC workshop 2010 at November 11th and 12th in Göttingen
After the kickoff meeting in Aarhus in April this year there now will be the second workshop held at the Göttingen University in the Institut für Anorganische Chemie at the 11. and 12. November. There will be about 60 participants from the Danish and German side to discuss cutting-edge structural problems in material science. The meeting will be held in MN 28 (Zsigmondy-Hörsaal) in the Tammannstraße 4 of the Institut für Anorganische Chemie.