Several groundbreaking scientific discoveries in the 80-ties and 90-ties of the last centuries paved the way for an intrinsic transdisciplinary research. Among them were Supramolecular Chemistry, nanomaterials, the discovery of the Quantum Hall effect, the deciphering of the function and structure of biological molecular motors and the development of the Scanning Probe Microscopes which allowed to investigate surfaces at the atomic scale.
Due to the fact that most supramolecular systems and complex biological systems such as DNA and proteins are all nano-sized objects it became quickly evident that these objects and also synthetic macro-molecules can be investigated with the novel microscopes even under ambient conditions with sub-nanometer resolution. On the other hand, functional units in computer electronics and smart materials were dramatically shrunk to a few nanometers in the last 4 decades. Thus, rather than a specific type of matter, the unique functional properties which occur only at the nanoscale became the bridge across the discipline borders in natural sciences, engineering and medicine making up the paradigm of nanotechnology. As a consequence, the rapidly developing nanoscience and-technology was neither focused to a single core-technologicy, such as micro-electronics starting the middle of last century, but rather spread quickly out into virtually all fields of modern technology including precision mechanics and optics, smart materials, new memory devices, photo-responsive materials, catalysis etc..
This fascinating field brought me as a physicist into a cooperation with leading Chinese Scientists in the field of Nanotechnology over more than 20 years by now. It also allowed me to host over 60 young Chinese scientists at the Univ. of Muenster and the Center for Nanotechnology (CeNTech).
The PIFI award allowed me to re-visit some outstanding laboratories in Beijing and Tianjin to meet old friends and meet young scientists in the field and also allowed me to get a direct impression of the fantastic progress of some of my former post-doctoral fellows, now being Professors at the NCNST, IOP and Tianjin University and other places.
The NCNST made an unbelievable progress since its inauguration and is meanwhile hosted in three tall buildings where about 1000 researchers and techniques are pushing the fascinating scientific spectrum of nano-science and-technology pushed forward at highest international standards. My host, Prof. Jingdong REN, formerly working in my group at CeNTech, Münster, had built up his own STM laboratory in a short time and is now production excellent new results in surface science. He got me in contact with his department leader, Prof. Qing DAI, who established an impressive laboratory for plasmonic and terahertz devices with unprecedented performance. It was also pleased to meet an old friend and collaborator, Prof. Chunying CHEN at NCNST. I was working with her and Yuliang ZHAO previously very successfully in several international projects in the field of nanomedicine.
My tour in Beijing also allowed me to visit IOP to exchange recent results with Prof. Shixuan DU on LT-UHV STM/AFM on 2D-Materials as well as molecular- and spin systems. With her and Prof. Hongjun GAO I can look back to more than two decades of a very fruitful international cooperation leading to a number of highly recognized publications.
At the end of my tour I had the opportunity to also visit Tianjin University, meeting another longstanding friend and collaborator, Prof. Wenping HU, the vice president of Tianjin University and working in organic electronics with outstanding international success. It was a pleasure to meet two young professors at Tianjin University, Deyang JI who was, coming from Wenping HU's group at ICCAS working for several years very successfully at CeNTech in the field of nanostructured OFET systems, and Hongying GAO who joined us from UCST, Heifei. He is now setting up his own surface science laboratory, ready for new endeavors in on-surface chemistry.
In summary, the scientific exchange supported by the PIFI award was very inspiring. It initiated a number of new ideas on both sides for the extension of future German-Chinese collaboration, with an emphasis for the exchange of students and young scientists. During my presentations and the subsequent discussion, I was in particular impressed by the eagerness and curiosity of the students.
The warm welcomes I experienced from my advanced and young colleagues and students was a great personal pleasure and experience.
Photo: Prof. Harald Fuchs from University of Muenster, Gemany, a PIFI Distinguished Scientist, with his host at NCNST, Prof. Jindong Ren.
