Press release No. 142, 23 November 2011

Expansion of Konstanz Nano Research

DFG extends Konstanz Collaborative Research Center “Controlled Nanosystems” – 7.3 million euros in funding until 2015

After a positive assessment, the German Research Foundation (DFG) announced the extension of the Collaborative Research Center (CRC) 767 “Controlled Nanosystems: Interaction and Interfacing to the Macroscale” of the University of Konstanz. Thus the DFG will continue to promote an interdisciplinary research group, which succeeded in attaining excellent research achievements since its first period of funding that began in 2008 and at this early stage already achieved high visibility in the field of nanoscience with numerous publications in prestigious scientific journals such as Nature, Science, Physical Review Letters and Angewandte Chemie. “I am very pleased about what great research progress could already be implemented in the first phase of funding. We were able to start up a large number of collaborations and new ideas and are now pleased to be able to harvest the fruits of our labour with the extension of our Collaborative Research Center,” Prof. Dr. Elke Scheer, spokeswoman of “Controlled Nanosystems” explains. The DFG is promoting the Collaborative Research Center in its second phase of funding from 2012 to 2015 with a total of 7.5 million euros.

The Konstanz Collaborative Research Center 767 “Controlled Nanosystems” taps into the mechanical, optical and electrical behaviour of objects in the nanometer range – meaning in the size range of a billionth of a meter. These nano-objects are produced with physical and chemical methods and analysed. The research group analyses the interaction of nano structures amongst themselves and also towards the macroscopic outside world. The emphasis is on basic research, but a goal is always the demonstration of possible applications of novel interaction phenomena as well.

“To achieve on a relatively small site such high visibility in the large and highly competitive field of nanotechnology research is only possible if one has a clear unique selling point – and this is our focus on the aspect of control. We observe not only how the nanosystems behave, but influence them from outside and modify their quantum properties,” explains Elke Scheer. As a new research area in the second period of funding, magnetic transport phenomena that are caused by temperature differences have been added.

The CRC “Controlled Nanosystems” consists of 14 subprojects and an integrated graduate programme: involved are the departments of Physics and Chemistry at the University of Konstanz as well as the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Physics in Stuttgart. Approximately 20 project managers as well as 40 doctoral students are integrated in the Collaborative Research Center.

“We benefit from the strong support of the university administration and in particular from our spatially focused campus university where research partners are in close proximity to all subject areas. Through the Excellence Initiative we were also able to improve significantly in terms of equipment or facilities,” says Elke Scheer, pointing out the conditions at the University of Konstanz that are conducive to research. “The research culture of Konstanz, through which project groups work closely together and beyond the subject boundaries is a strength that one does not have everywhere: the fact that excellence is currently being supported by collaboration and systematically promoted – this is something very special and is quite essential for our Collaborative Research Center,” says Elke Scheer.

With the extension of the CRC 767 “Controlled Nanosystems: Interaction and Interfacing to the Macroscale” on Tuesday, November 22, 2011, the University received on the same day another piece of good news from the German Research Foundation (DFG). The DFG also approved the CRC 969 “Chemical and Biological Principles of Cellular Proteostasis” with a funding sum of 7.5 million euros (see Press Release No. 143/2011).