Electronic Properties of Materials

We are interested in the investigation of the electronic properties of novel materials and condensed matter quantum systems. Examples of these correlated quantum solids are low dimensional carbon systems, cuprate high-temperature superconductors, materials with colossal magnetoresistance and solar cells. The term electronic properties denotes physical quantities which are directly related to the response of the charge carriers on electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields. We aim at unraveling the correlated ground and excited state properties of these tailor made low dimensional systems and at comparing these, with various state of the art theoretical models.

The complex interplay between charge transfer, hybridisation, and charge transport is the key to their application potential and to design novel materials with interesting electronic, optical and magnetic properties such as one-dimensional metals or spin chains, two-dimensional devices based on the cuprate superconductors, and solar cells.

Our methods comprise electrical transport measurements in a wide range of temperature, magnetic field, frequency, and current density, as well as a cutting edge spectroscopic approach using third generation synchrotron radiation sources for angle resolved photoemission spectroscopy and X-ray absorption and a laboratory-based system combining photoemission, Raman, IR, UV/Vis and luminescence spectroscopy.