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Research

“Let the molecule do the job” is one of our guiding principles. Our goal is to use tailor-made molecules to contribute to our understanding of the structure of matter and its fundammental interactions.

Usually, when talking about studies on the structure of matter, one has gigantic accelerator experiments of high-energy physics in mind, in which charged particles, for example highly charged heavy ions, are made to collide at the highest possible energy in order to subsequently study the fragments that are formed.

Instead, we are taking the low-energy route and want to understand the interactions of the elementary building blocks of our world on the basis of comparatively inexpensive, high-precision laboratory experiments.

The key to this: theory, with which we can predict properties of the systems under investigation as accurately as possible, so that new models of the structure of matter can be compared with the experiment.

In atomic physics, one typically wants to do the same and uses highly complicated arrangements of external fields to impose special states on atoms that they would otherwise not assume. But our motto says: “Let the molecule do the job!” In our view, special fields on an atomic scale can best be created with suitable other atoms in a molecule. So we are looking for tailor-made molecules that generate exactly those internal fields that are crucial for studying the fundamental structure of matter. And of course chemists can do this perfectly: identify unusual compounds, produce them efficiently and specifically, and finally describe their properties!