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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
- A new growth process for crystalline ultra-thin layers of conjugated oligomers used in field-effect transistor applications
- Sven Renkert, Sadiara Fall, Sajedeh Motamen, Thibaut Jarrosson, Françoise Serein-Spirau, Thomas Heiser, Laurent Simon, Günter Reiter, Jean-Luc Bubendorff. Applied Surface Science 539 (2021) 148024
- The memorizing capacity of polymers
- Günter Reiter. J. Chem. Phys. 152, 150901 (2020)
- Formation of asymmetric leaf-shaped crystals in ultrathin films of oriented polyethylene molecules resulting from high-temperature relaxation and recrystallization
- Huihui Li, Duanzijing Liu, Xinyun Bu, Zhenzhen Zhou, Zhongjie Ren, Xiaoli Sun, Renate Reiter, Shouke Yan, Günter Reiter. Macromolecules 53 (2020) 346-354
- Controlling phase transitions in Langmuir polymer films
- Abhijna Das. Inauguraldissertation der Fakultät für Mathematik und Physik 2020. DOI: 10.6094/UNIFR/167266
- Controlling Nucleation in Quasi-Two-Dimensional Langmuir Poly(L-lactide) Films through Variation of the Rate of Compression
- Abhijna Das, Ahmed S. El-Tawargy, Emna Khechine, Sebastian Noack, Helmut Schlaad, Günter Reiter, and Renate Reiter. Langmuir 35 (2019) 6129-6136
- Activity of the Gramicidin A Ion Channel in a Lipid Membrane with Switchable Physical Properties
- Renate Reiter, Ekaterina Zaitseva, Gerhard Baaken, Ibrahim Halimeh, Jan C. Behrends, Andreas Zumbuehl. Langmuir 35 (2019) 14959-14966
- Dewetting Rheology for Determining Viscoelastic Properties of Non-equilibrated Thin Polymer Films
- Austine A. Mulama, Sivasurender Chandran, Konstantinos Roumpos, Andrew O. Oduor, and Günter Reiter. Macromolecules 52 (2019) 7894-7903
- Relation between Charge Transport and the Number of Interconnected Lamellar Poly(3-hexylthiophene) Crystals
- Binghua Wang, Jingbo Chen, Changyu Shen, Günter Reiter, Bin Zhang. Macromolecules 52 (2019) 6088-6096
- Fully Isotactic Poly(p-methylstyrene): Precise Synthesis via Catalytic Polymerization and Crystallization Studies
- Tianyu Wu, Luis Valencia, Thomas Pfohl, Barbara Heck, Günter Reiter, Pierre Lutz, Rolf Mülhaupt. Macromolecules 52 (2019) 4839-4846
- Photoelectronic properties of composite films based on conductive polymer PIDT-BT and single-walled carbon nanotubes
- Andrey N. Aleshin, Baode Zhang, Petr A. Aleshin, Vasily N. Petrov, Irina N. Trapeznikova, Günter Reiter, Janis Kleperis. SN Applied Sciences 1 (2019) 1101
- Segmental Rearrangements Relax Stresses in Nonequilibrated Polymer Films
- Sivasurender Chandran, Günter Reiter. ACS Macro Letters, 8, 646, (2019)
- Thermodynamic Features of Perfectly Crystalline Poly(3-Hexylthiophene) Based on Flory’s Relation
- Mina Alizadehaghdam, Silvia Siegenführ, Farhang Abbasi, and Günter Reiter. Journal of Polymer Science Part B: Polymer Physics 57, 431–437 (2019)
- Thermodynamic Features of Perfectly Crystalline Poly(3-hexylthiophene) Revealed Through Studies of Imperfect Crystals
- Mina Alizadehaghdam, Barbara Heck, Silvia Siegenführ, Farhang Abbasi, and Günter Reiter. Macromolecules 52 (2019) 2487–2494
- A Structural Fibrillation Parameter from Small Angle X-ray Scattering to Quantify Pulp Refining
- Jia Mao, Barbara Heck, Hatem Abushammala, Günter Reiter, and Marie-Pierre Laborie. Cellulose 26 (2019) 4265–4277
- Following isothermal and non-isothermal crystallization of poly(3- hexylthiophene) thin films by UV-vis spectroscopy
- Mina Alizadehaghdam, Barbara Heck, Silvia Siegenführ, Yaser AlShetwi, Fanuel M. Keheze, Sebastian Stäter, Farhang Abbasia, Günter Reiter. Polymer 210 (2020) 122959
- Snails as living 3D printers: free forms for the architecture of tomorrow
- Christoph Allgaier, Benjamin Felbrich, Frederik Wulle, Emna Khechine, James H. Nebelsick, Achim Menges, Günter Reiter, Renate Reiter, Armin Lechler, Alexander Verl, Karl-Heinz Wurst. In Knippers, J; Schmid, U.; Speck, T. (eds.) Biomimetics for Architecture, Birkhäuser, Basel 2019, pp 126-133. (ISBN: 978-3-0356-1791-7)
- Controlling the Growth of Stacks of Correlated Lamellar Crystals of a Block Copolymer
- Sumit Majumder, Renate Reiter, Jun Xu and Günter Reiter. Macromolecules 52 (2019) 9665-9671
- Determination of the Critical Size of Secondary Nuclei on the Lateral Growth Front of Lamellar Polymer Crystals
- Shujing Zhang, Jiarui Han, Yang Gao, Bao-Hua Guo, Günter Reiter, Jun Xu. Macromolecules 52 (2019) 7439-7447
- A Nucleation Mechanism Leading to Stacking of Lamellar Crystals in Polymer Thin Films
- Sumit Majumder, Purushottam Poudel, Hui Zhang, Jun Xu, Günter Reiter. Polymer International 69 (2020) 1058
- Processing Pathways Decide Polymer Properties at the Molecular Level
- S. Chandran, J. Baschnagel, D. Cangialosi, K. Fukao, E. Glynos, L. M. C. Janssen, M. Müller, M. Muthukumar, U. Steiner, J. Xu, S. Napolitano, and G. Reiter. Macromolecules 52 (2019) 7146-7156