SFB 1552: Defects and Defect Engineering in Soft Matter

“缺陷工程”是硬物质科学中的一个既定术语和方法，最突出的是在定制无机半导体的电子、机械和光学属性的背景下。与之形成鲜明对比的是，具有丰富的自由能景观和结构多样性的软物质的缺陷控制潜力还没有得到全面的探索。尽管制造和功能化无缺陷的、定义明确的聚合物和胶体结构的策略在过去引起了很大的关注，但对软物质中的缺陷进行分类、评估和控制的尝试很少。拟议中的合作研究中心(CRC)的使命是改变这一范式。为此，我们首先要了解缺陷对聚合物、胶体和两亲性体系的结构、动力学和性质的影响。其次，我们希望制定全面的策略来控制缺陷的形成，从而获得对缺陷结构(S)、集中度和时间演变的控制。基于这些见解，我们的目标是(1)建立对缺陷与动态软物质系统的适应性和弹性之间相互作用的基本理解，以及(2)使设备功能单元的开发成为可能，其中缺陷将是实际的功能赋予者，例如，通过控制物质或电荷的传输。为此，我们提出了根据拓扑缺陷、连接性缺陷和掺杂缺陷对缺陷进行分类。这些类型的缺陷在软物质中的影响将在实验和理论的共同努力下进行系统的评估。在实验上，对不同缺陷类型的调查不仅需要全面的综合专业知识，还需要专门的分析方法。我们将涵盖软物质的广泛表现形式，从柔性聚合物，到嵌段共聚物和两亲性，但也包括胶体和生物分子。我们将考虑经典的软物质属性，即宏观弹性、粘弹性和微观渗透率，并试图找到它们依赖于不同形式缺陷存在的基本物理原理。此外，还将考虑缺陷对特定性质的影响，例如聚合物和胶体功能单元的电光活性。作为进一步的步骤，将研究合成和生物来源的活性超分子材料在可控诱导和消除缺陷方面的作用。

"Defect engineering" is an established term and approach in hard-matter science, most prominently in the context of tailoring electronic, mechanical, and optical properties of inorganic semiconductors. In sharp contrast, the potential of defect control in soft matter, with ist inherently rich free energy landscape and structural diversity, has not yet been comprehensively explored. Whereas strategies to make and functionalize defect-free, well-defined polymeric and colloidal structures have attracted much attention in the past, attempts to classify, assess, and control defects in soft matter are scarce. The mission of the proposed collaborative research center (CRC) is to shift this paradigm. For this purpose, we first aim to understand the influence of defects on the structure, dynamics, and properties of polymeric, colloidal, and amphiphilic systems. Second, we want to develop comprehensive strategies to control the defect formation and thus gain control over the defect structure(s), concentration, and temporal evolution. Based on these insights, we aim to (1) establish a fundamental understanding of the interplay between defects and the adaptivity and resilience of dynamic soft matter systems and, (2) enable the development of functional units for devices, wherein defects will be the actual function givers e.g., by controlling the transport of matter or charges. For that purpose, we propose a classification of defects in terms of topological defects, connectivity defects, and doping defects. The impact of these types of defects in soft matter will be evaluated systematically in a joint effort of experiment and theory. Experimentally, the investigation of the different defect types requires not only comprehensive synthetic expertise, but also specialized analytical methods. We will cover a broad scope of soft matter manifestations, reaching from flexible polymers, to block copolymers and amphiphiles, but also colloids and biomolecules. We will consider classical soft matter properties, that is, macroscopic elasticity, viscoelasticity, and microscopic permeability and try to find fundamental physical principles to their dependency on the presence of different forms of defects. In addition, the impact of defects on specific properties such as the electro-optical activity of polymer- and colloid-based functional units will be considered. As further step, active supramolecular materials of synthetic and biological origin will be investigated with respect to the controllable induction and elimination of defects.