The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved the CRC 1552 “Defects and Defect Engineering in Soft Matter” and will provide around EUR 8 million over the next few years. Defects are generally associated with failure or damage – but in materials science, defects also offer great opportunities. These opportunities will be explored by a new Collaborative Research Center (CRC) in the field of soft matter to be established under the leadership of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU).The Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and the Fraunhofer Institute for Microtechnology and Microsystems IMM are also involved. Scientists from the fields of biology, chemistry and physics will pursue an innovative approach to establish a new design principle for soft matter: so-called defect control. The principle is known from semiconductors – the basis of our digital world.

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