Publications
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Recent Publications
Spatiotemporal Sequence of Interdependent Nucleation Mechanisms in Ultrathin Polymer Films
Da Huang, Rana Bakhshi, Raoul M. D'Anselme, Günter Reiter. Macromolecules, published online
Employing defined starting conditions of ultrathin molten poly(ethylene oxide) films on model solid substrates, we investigated the spatiotemporal sequence of interdependent mechanisms of crystal nucleation. Due to the limited number and the preferred conformation of polymer chains parallel to the substrate, primary nucleation favored edge-on lamellar crystals, which indirectly induced other subsequent nucleation pathways, enabled through the molten polymer chains accumulated at their peripheral fold surfaces. Both additional edge-on lamellar crystals and branched flat-on lamellar crystals were initiated. For long-chain polymers, spatial correlations between lamellar crystals across intervening noncrystalline regions were established through polymer chains incorporated within neighboring lamellae. (more...)
Decai Lin, Zebin Su, Yuxiang Chen, Jianquan Xu, Günter Reiter, Cuiyun Zhang, Xinping Wang. Macromolecules 59 (2026) 4970–4981
Using infrared reflection–absorption spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy, we revealed that polymer–substrate interactions, chain length, and film thickness critically influenced the morphology and orientation of lamellar crystals of poly(l-lactide) (PLLA) grown at a constant temperature. In contrast to the often-observed monotonic change from preferentially flat-on to edge-on crystals upon increasing film thickness, an unprecedented nonmonotonic change in the dominating orientation of lamellar crystals from edge-on to flat-on and back to edge-on was observed. In the thinnest films, size confinement and adsorption-induced alignment of the chains favored the nucleation and growth of edge-on lamellar crystals. Enhanced polymer–substrate interactions promoted the formation of edge-on lamellar crystals in the thinnest films with a higher molecular weight. (more..)
Anmol Arya, Solomon L. Joseph, Francois Vonau, Jean-Luc Bubendorff, Silvia Siegenführ, Laurent Simon, Günter Reiter. J. Phys. Chem. C 2026, 130, 5536–5546
In the course of electrospraying in a vacuum, polymers acquire electric charges, which are distributed along their backbone. Here, we demonstrate that these charges have a strong impact on the molecular ordering and spectroscopic properties of conjugated polymers when deposited on substrates with an insulating oxide layer. To this end, we electrosprayed varying amounts of poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) onto silicon substrates with oxide layers of different thickness. The resulting morphologies were explored by atomic force microscopy. The corresponding spectroscopic properties, including their changes in time upon illumination, were derived from photoluminescence (PL) measurements. On insulating substrates, charges were retained on the polymer chains, causing long-range electrostatic repulsion and the formation of largely separated droplet-like objects containing multiple chains. These objects exhibited significant PL intensities for photons with a wavelength (λ) less than ca. 600 nm, suggesting the lack of π–π stacking interactions between P3HT chains. (more...)
Reversible Metamorphosis of a Conjugated Polymer Induced by Photoexcitation
Solomon Joseph, Anmol Arya, Günter Reiter. Advanced Photonics Research 7 (2026) e202500311
Optoelectronic properties of materials are frequently examined through spectroscopic tools based on the absorption and emission of (visible) photons. Typically, one assumes that these transient characterization processes do not cause observable change of these properties because of the low power of the employed light sources. However, for flexible conjugated polymers in a medium of low viscosity, it is decidedly unclear whether photoexcitation of electrons on the backbone of a long polymer chain has an influence on macromolecular conformations and the corresponding intermolecular interactions. Here, we provide clear experimental evidence that continuous absorption of photons progressively causes persistent changes in the spectroscopic properties of conjugated polymers, accompanied by microscopically observable changes in their spatial distribution within a low-viscosity matrix. By contrast, all these changes were completely absent in nonilluminated parts of the same sample.(more...)
Temperature dependence of crystal – melt coexistence for supported polyethylene filaments
Da Huang, Thorsten Hugel, Bizan N. Balzer, Günter Reiter. Nature Communications 16 (2025) 11127
The broken symmetry of molecular interactions at interfaces is causing that crystals are often covered by a thin liquid layer of their own melt. Such crystal–melt coexistence can be related to phenomena of surface premelting, secondary nucleation and melting point depression, particularly important for small systems. Here, we employed intermittent-contact mode atomic force microscopy imaging on nanoscopic semi-cylindrical filaments of polyethylene on a substrate to observe that these filaments contained a crystalline core bounded by molten regions of rather uniform width, W_soft= (9 ± 2) nm at room temperature, which increased reversibly with temperature T. Filaments smaller than ca. 2∙W_soft (T) were completely molten. The values of W_soft (T) compared favorably with theoretically predicted characteristic length scales in the context of nucleation, surface premelting and the melting point depression of finite size crystals. Altogether, we show that these three phenomena are related and dominated by the intermolecular forces acting at crystal surfaces.(more...)
List of Publications
- Thermodynamic origin of multi-layer structures in Langmuir polymer films
- Volker Knecht, Günter Reiter, Renate Reiter. Langmuir 33 (2017) 11399–11405
- Structure Formation in Langmuir Peptide Films As Revealed from Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Simulations
- Volker Knecht, Günter Reiter, Helmut Schlaad, and Renate Reiter. Langmuir 33 (2017) 6492-6502
- Schnecken als lebende 3D-Drucker: freie Formen für die Architektur von morgen
- Christoph Allgaier, Benjamin Felbrich, Frederik Wulle, Emna Khechine, James H. Nebelsick, Achim Menges, Günter Reiter, Renate Reiter, Armin Lechler, Alexander Verl, Karl-Heinz Wurst. Baubionik – Biologie beflügelt Architektur, Publisher: Naturkundemuseum Stuttgart 2017
- Signatures of Melting and Recrystallization of a Bulky Substituted Poly(thiophene) Identified by Optical Spectroscopy
- Fanuel Keheze, Dominic Raithel, Tianyu Wu, Daniel Schiefer, Michael Sommer, Richard Hildner, Günter Reiter. Macromolecules 50 (2017) 6829–6839
- Triple-Shape Memory Materials via Thermoresponsive Behavior of Nanocrystalline Non-Isocyanate Polyhydroxyurethanes
- Vitalij Schimpf, Barbara Heck, Günter Reiter, Rolf Mülhaupt. Macromolecules 50 (2017) 3598–3606
- Semicrystalline long-chain polyphosphoesters from polyesterification
- Hanna Busch, Sumit Majumder, Guenter Reiter, Stefan Mecking. Macromolecules 50 (2017) 2706–2713
- Blocking of injected holes at the charge extracting interface
- L. Govor, G. Reiter, J. Parisi. Journal of Physics, Condensed Matter 29 (2017) 025001
- Relaxing Non-equilibrated Polymers in Thin Films at Temperatures Slightly Above the Glass Transition
- Mithun Chowdhury, Samer Al Akhrass, Falko Ziebert, Günter Reiter. Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics 55 (2017) 515–523
- Solvent-controlled reversible switching between adsorbed self-assembled nanoribbons and nanotubes
- Asad Jamal, Irina Nyrkova, Philippe Mesini, Swann Militzer and Günter Reiter. Nanoscale 9 (2017) 3293-3303
- Low Loss Optical Waveguiding in Large Single Crystals of Thiophene-Based Oligomers
- Sajedeh Motamen, Christian Schörner, Dominic Raithel, Jean-Pierre Malval, Thibaut Jarrosson, Françoise Serein-Spirau, Laurent Simon, Richard Hildner, Günter Reiter. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 19 (2017) 15980 - 15987
- Time Allowed for Equilibration Quantifies the Preparation Induced Non-equilibrium Behavior of Polymer Films
- Sivasurender Chandran, Rishab Handa, Marwa Kchaou, Samer Al Akhrass, Alexander Semenov, Günter Reiter. ACS Macro Lett. 6 (2017) 1296-1300
- A novel interferometric method for the study of the viscoelastic properties of ultra-thin polymer films determined from nanobubble inflation
- P. Chapuis , P. C. Montgomery, F. Anstotz, A. Leong-Hoï, C. Gauthier, J. Baschnagel, G. Reiter, G. B. McKenna, and A. Rubin. Review of Scientific Instruments 88 (2017) 093901
- Controlling Polymer Crystallization Kinetics by Sample History
- Purushottam Poudel, Sivasurender Chandran, Sumit Majumder and Günter Reiter. Macromol. Chem. Phys. 2017, 1700315
- Morphological Changes of Isotactic Polypropylene Crystals Grown in Thin Films
- Bin Zhang, Jiajia Chen, Baochen Liu, Binghua Wang, Changyu Shen, Renate Reiter, Jingbo Chen, Günter Reiter. Macromolecules 50 (2017) 6210−6217
- Soft electrostatic trapping in nanofluidics
- Michael A. Gerspach, Nassir Mojarad, Deepika Sharma, Thomas Pfohl, and Yasin Ekinci. Microsystems & Nanoengineering (2017) 3, 17051
- Live cell X-ray imaging of autophagic vacuoles formation and chromatin dynamics in fission yeast
- N. Strelnikova, N. Sauter, M. Guizar-Sicairos, M. Göllner, A. Diaz, P. Delivani, M. Chacon, I. M. Tolić, V. Zaburdaev, T. Pfohl, Scientific Reports 7 (2017) 13775
- Second messenger-mediated tactile response by a bacterial rotary motor
- I. Hug, S. Deshpande, K. S. Sprecher, T. Pfohl, U. Jenal, Science 358 (2017) 531-534
- Manipulating the dewetting dynamics of polymer films by creating non-equilibrium conformational states at the interface
- Adrian Linn, Master Thesis 2017
- Induziertes gerichtetes Kristallwachstum einer kristallisierbaren Polymerkomponente innerhalb eines nicht-kristallisierbaren Polymernetzwerks und Untersuchung der resultierenden mechanischen Energie
- Stephan Laule. Inauguraldissertation 2017
- Self-Assembly and Polymerization of Diacetylene Molecules on Epitaxial Graphene
- Fallou Fall, Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrads der Fakultät für Mathematik und Physik der Universität Freiburg, 2017