Max Planck Institutes and Experts

Semiconductor chips and neuronal systems can be electrically coupled on a microscopic level. This research provides the fundament for an application of such hybrid processors in brain research, neuroprosthetics and information technology. On the neuronal side, ion channels, nerve cells and brain tissue are employed. On the electronic side, simple silicon chips with transistors and capacitors are used for the elucidation of the coupling mechanism. On that basis, complex chips are developed with more that 30000 contact sites to supervise neuronal activity with highest spatial resolution.

Non-volatile solid state memories of high memory density are a promising research field, both under technological and fundamental aspects. Since the size of a single memory cell must be clearly below 100 nanometer, and the properties of storage materials can be considerably modified at such low size, the development of suitable preparation methods and the property analysis of the thus prepared memory cells represent considerable challenges. Such investigations are part of the research on nanostructured materials at Max Planck Institute of Microsctructure Physics in Halle.

Peptide natural products are structurally related small molecules which occur in nature and display broad biological activity. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Dortmund focused on thiopeptides and on chondramide C, potent antibiotics and an F-actin addressing cytostatic. Progress in elucidating their molecular mode of action, in designing derived fluorescent probes and in access by chemical synthesis is reported.

Conducting organic materials aim to compete with traditional silicon-based technology for optoelectronic applications, for instance light-emitting diodes, solar cells and transistors. To further develop these materials for commercial applications, a profound understanding of the relation between chemical structure and optical / electronic properties is required. Recent advances in optical spectroscopy with pulsed lasers allow studying the photophysical processes down to a timescale of femtoseconds.

Organic semiconductors allow the preparation of low-cost, flexible and large-area processable devices such as light-emitting diodes (LEDs), field-effect transistors (FETs), photovoltaic cells (PVs), and sensor materials. Thereby a lot of basic science is involved, since besides of technical optimizations there is also a strong need for new synthetic building blocks. Thus actual research focuses on the development of tailored functional organic materials and their processing as films of suitable morphology for the individual applications.