Chances are you are reading this text on the screen of a desktop computer, tablet, or even a smartphone, and in each of your devices, silicon has been processed into thin, semiconducting layers. Moore’s Law—i.e., the observation that computing power is doubling every year—has delivered on its promise so far, but last year’s announcement made by microprocessor giant Intel at the 2015 international solid-state circuits conference (ISSCC) challenges this golden rule that has governed silicon industry for over four decades. Intel’s new 10 nm manufacturing process for microchips expected in 2017 will be the end of the road for silicon, and devices based on 7 nm and beyond, Intel says, will require entirely new materials.

Our team develops materials that combine useful electronic properties without the need for rare, hard-to-come-by resources. Our organic porous polymer materials are constructed in a bottom-up process of molecular Lego and show beautiful levels of symmetry and useful function in the next generation of electronics: beyond silicon and graphene.

What you will learn.

You will learn how to think about chemistry as an enabling science for the solution of today’s problems especially in the areas of climate- and energy-applications and materials security in a highly cross-disciplinary field between organic and polymer chemistry, materials science, and physics. You will employ novel synthetic techniques – geomimetics (high-p and high-T) for organic-polymer chemistry – and state-of-the-art analytical tools ranging from atomic-scale imaging to synchrotron X-ray diffraction.

Why is it interesting?

Since 2016, there are more mobile phones than people on the planet, and the continuous rise of the electronic manufacturing service (EMS) sector is paramount for modern society, in particular in semiconductor manufacture, and coatings, but also in (polymer) synthetic chemistry.