Phase transitions and separations at interfaces

技术进步越来越依赖于自然界中不存在的材料。然而，我们从大自然及其发明中寻找材料研究解决方案的灵感和想法。在材料科学中，大自然告诉我们，最复杂的解决方案是复杂的材料，自组装的材料，只存在于热力学平衡之外，在体积和表面上具有不同的性质。在实验室中采取同样的方法需要跨学科的方法。我们需要表面化学和表面物理来定制表面的属性，我们需要材料科学和工程来制造和修改衬底，我们需要非平衡热力学和化学动力学来定义具有减小尺寸或分层结构的可操作材料。这一领域的进步并不容易，因为越来越复杂的系统显示出广泛的竞争过程;设计的改进伴随着对其他重要材料性能不利的竞争效应。目前的项目旨在解决材料制造中的一种特殊类型的挑战：异构系统中的相分离和相变过程。我们都知道水和油是不能混合的，如果你强迫它们在一起，它们就会开始分离。分离系统的最终平衡并不令人感兴趣;然而，如果我们能够冻结一个中间的、部分分离的状态，那么我们就可能获得一个具有新性质的系统，并有希望获得新的应用。相分离发生在许多过程中，从半导体系统的薄膜或异质结构生长到人工或天然生物膜的形成。我们的研究旨在了解这些动态过程的许多方面，并探索以可预测的方式干扰甚至引导它们的可能性。

Technological advances rely increasingly on materials which do not exist in nature. Yet, we look at nature and its inventions for inspiration and ideas for materials research solutions. What nature teaches us in materials science is that the most sophisticated solutions are materials that are complex, that self-assemble, that exist only outside the thermodynamic equilibrium, that have different properties in bulk and at their surfaces. To take the same approach in the laboratory requires an interdisciplinary approach. We need Surface Chemistry and Surface Physics to tailor the properties at the surface, we need Materials Science and Engineering to manufacture and modify the substrates, and we need Non-equilibrium thermodynamics and Chemical kinetics to define an operational material with reduced dimensions or layered structures. Advances in this field do not come easy as increasingly complex systems display a wide range of competing processes; a designed improvement is accompanied by competing efefcts that are adverse for other important materials properties. The current project aims at tackling one particular type of challenge in materials manufacturing: phase separation and phase transition processes in heterogeneous systems. We all know that water and oil don't mix; if you force them together they start to separate. The final equilibrium of separated systems is not interesting; however, if we can freeze an intermediate, partially separated state, then we may have obtained a system with novel properties and, hopefully, novel applications. Phase separations occur in many processes, ranging from thin film or heterostructure growth of semiconductor systems to the formation of artifical or natural biomembranes. Our research aims at understanding the many aspects of these dynamic processes and explore possibilities to interfere or even steer them in a predictable fashion.