SFB 1625
Atomic-Scale Understanding and Design of Multifunctional Surfaces
The team at this Collaborative Research Centre aims to understand and design the surfaces of complex metallic solid solutions with atomic precision.
Compositionally complex solid solutions (CCSS), which contain five or more metallic elements in a simple crystal structure, offer conceptually unique and promising prospects in scientific and technological fields in which the surface determines the properties. The CRC aims to utilise CCSS as material design platforms. To this end, the researchers want to gain a combined theoretical and experimental understanding of CCSS at the atomic level, as the special properties of CCSS are based on the high number of different polyelementary active centers on the surface.
The focus is on the surface atom arrangements, i.e. the specific arrangements of the different surface atoms. Their statistical distribution determines the surface composition and their knowledge is essential for the design of composition-structure-activity relationships. The members of the CRC want to understand and control these arrangements – their formation, their variation for different systems and compositions, their changes due to experimental conditions – in order to systematically manipulate them for the design of their properties.
The primary goal is not the direct development of new catalysts, but the acquisition of fundamental knowledge and the exploration of new possibilities arising from the surface design of CCSS.
