Helmholtz Virtual Institutes

Helmholtz Virtual Institute "Dynamic Pathways in Multidimensional Landscapes"

The Virtual Institute explores the governing principles of material’s function in an internationally highly visible centre of excellence, where through a series of interdependent investigations researchers from HZB and DESY and two German Universities join forces with the Virtual Institute’s national and international associated partners. Scientifically, we gain a unifying view on material classes whose properties are governed by coupled internal degrees of freedom (charge, orbit, spin, and nuclear motion) that interact with the environment (external fields and heat baths). These properties lead to functionality we can utilize and tailor to harvest and store energy, communicate and archive knowledge. Since low energy excitations, nanoscale order and ultra fast timescales are involved, we propose to engage in a science program along these three dimensions of energy, space and time. Thus, we intentionally cross the boundaries between solid, liquid and molecular systems.