Institut für Ionenphysik und Angewandte Physik - Computational Photophysics

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For students

I am always happy to welcome new bachelor and master students in my group. Please feel free to contact me. Almost all our projects are conducted in close collaboration with experimentalist and offer therefore a possibility for exploring also the experimental side of the modern physics.

Possible master's thesis topics:

Photochemistry of aerosols: Aerosols are small particles in the atmosphere that influence considerably the quality of the air we breathe as well as our climate. As they absorb sun photons, it is fundamental to understand their photochemical properties. Using small models of organic molecules adsorbed on small salt/water clusters, we reveal the photoinduced reactions and investigate their implication on atmospheric chemistry.

Photochemistry of solid state: Photochemistry of ions in solids and molecules adsorbed on surfaces is computationally a very demanding topic and still waits to be explored fully. We try to understand experimentally observed changes in spectroscopic properties induced by variation of ions in the solids (e.g. introduction of cobalt ions into MgO) and by adsorption of molecules on the surfaces.

Spectroscopy of transition metal clusters: Transition metal ions serve as nanolaboratories to explore the most fundamental chemical processes with unprecedented detail. Our goal is to understand the reactivity of hydrated metal ions through modeling of their spectra (infrared, UV), reactivity in the ground state as well as in the electronically excited states.

Reactions induced by electron attachment: When an electron is attached to a molecule, a different charge state is reached, i.e. we are confronted with a molecule with different properties. Through the attachment, chemical reactions are often induced. We are interested both in the process of electron attachment that can be approached through modeling of potential energy curves in both neutral and anionic state, as well as in the induced chemistry.

Quantum chemistry on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs): Calculations on GPUs are much faster compared to the ones on CPUs. However, the technical possibilities are slightly more limited. We would like to use the calculations on GPUs to explore efficiently the properties of clusters and their evolution in time. What is the timescale of chemical reactions? How long does it take to redistribute energy in the cluster? Can we model dissociation induced by IR photons using direct molecular dynamics simulations on GPUs?