Research Interests

Detlef-M. Smilgies


	Organic Thin Films An exciting interdisciplinary field inbetween Materials Science, Chemistry, and Physics with applications ranging into Biology and Medicine. "Smart Materials" form on their own by various types of self-organization processes, provided the right external conditions are chosen.
	Self-Organization Self-organization processes are an essential ingredient to form thin films and nanostructures. There are physical and chemical mechanisms that drive self-organization. Structure and dynamics of the self-organizing system provide detailed understanding of the actual process. The ultimate self-organized system is the living cell.
	Supramolecular Assemblies A kind of molecular LEGO, inspired by building principles in biological objects. A mix of structural and functional components can build up anything from biosensors to solar cells - all you need is brains and a beaker.
	My Tool Box Understanding materials starts with determining their molecular structure. As a staff scientist at a synchrotron lab I have access to all the photons it takes. The study of interfaces and thin films makes grazing-incidence scattering techniques mandatory. My basic tools are grazing-incidence x-ray diffraction (GID), reflectivity (XR), and grazing-incidence small-angle scattering (GISAXS).
	Real-time In-situ Multiprobe Experiments Due to the straightforward scattering geometry and for providing simultaneous information about in-plane and out-of-plane structure of thin films, GISAXS is ideally suited for in-situ and real-time experiments. Of particular interest are solvent-vapor processing and coating of thin films. In addition sample environments can be equipped with a spectroscopic reflectometer for optical film thickness monitoring or VIS spectroscopy.
	Collaborations If you would like to know more about working at CHESS or may be interested to collaborate with me or would just like to have a chat on synchrotron x-ray experiments - please don't hesitate to contact me by e-mail. Some information and pretty pictures on ongoing projects can be found here.