The research interests of our group focus on supramolecular self-organization processes in new functional materials. Our main field is the synthesis and characterization of

• surfactants, 
• thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystals, and 
• molecular sensors or switches. 

These topics are part of the rapidly developing research field "soft matter".  Since numerous macroscopic properties of such supramolecular materials are subtly dependent on the intermolecular interactions they are particularly suitable for studies on this topic. 
Possible employments of such new materials are improved optical devices, data storages or analytical detection applications. The understanding of the underlying driving forces and of the (self-)organization principles on the molecular level  is important for e.g. applications in nano technology or in molecular biological processes.
Beyond the conventional analytical methods usually applied in Organic Chemistry we make use of Polarization Microscopy, Differential Scanning Calorymetry (DSC) and diffusion-ordered NMR spectroscopy (DOSY) to characterize the supramolecular and thermodynamical behaviour of our new materials or compositions.
More sophisticated and specialized measurements and applications of our materials are performed in the research groups of our cooperation partners.
Along our synthetic and physico-chemical work we largely employ computer simulations, e.g. density functional theory calculations or molecular dynamic studies, to investigate, understand and to predict the behaviour of molecules or molecular ensembles.