Light matters, especially for chemists, this was the conclusion drawn by the participants of the ISC course "Light and Matter" on Friday at a "scientific symposium" on the topic "How do chemists use the interaction of light and matter?" The students were well prepared: On Monday and Tuesday, they had worked out the basics of colour in organic and inorganic dyes with many experiments. On Wednesday and Thursday, this knowledge was applied to three specialisation topics, which the participants worked on in groups of two or three. For this, many experimental difficulties had to be overcome until the OLED was made to glow (Luminescence) or the organic solar cell supplied sufficient voltage (Photo catalysis). An electrically dimming mirror was constructed (Molecular switches) or it was investigated how dyes can be destroyed photo catalytically.
A highlight was certainly the visit to two research groups at the Faculty of Chemistry. In the working group of junior professor Nadja Simeth at the Institute of Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, fluorescence labelling was investigated for tracking chemical reactions. In the working group of Professor Dietmar Stalke, the participants learned about the powerful method of X-ray structure analysis for solving molecular structures. As far as we know, this was the first group of students in Germany able to evaluate the diffraction data themselves on the computer with the programmes of the professionals.