Mathias Micheel | Researcher

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Hello there! I’m Dr. Mathias Micheel, a postdoctoral scientist currently employed at the Leibniz-Institute of Photonic Technology in Jena, Germany. On this website, you may find more about my research and myself. From time to time, I might even drop random thoughts here - just like it was my personal blog in 2004!

And if in a distant future the supply of coal becomes completely exhausted, civilization will not be checked by that, for life and civilization will continue as long as the sun shines! – Giacomo Ciamician (1912). The photochemistry of the future. Science, 36(926), 385-394. doi: 10.1126/science.36.926.385

More than 100 years ago, Ciamician expressed his vision of a civilization which covers its energy needs not on the basis of coal (which he called fossil solar energy), but by direct utilization of solar energy. Instead of smokestacks from coal and oil factories, the chemical industry of the future will use glass tubes to drive their reactions. As a child from the Ruhr area, with its long history in coal mining and steel refining, I am every much committed to realizing his dream, which remains unfulfilled to date, and try to convert solar energy into so-called solar fuels.

At the moment, my research interest revolves around colloidal semiconductor nanoparticles, which can absorb visible sun light, their light-induced interaction with redoxactive molecules and polymers. In particular, I consider myself an expert in the spectroscopic characterization by means of time-resolved and steady state absorption and photoluminescence spectroscopies to investigate charge separation, localization and recombination processes in these structures in timescales from hundreds of femtoseconds to dozens of nanoseconds.

news

Sep 12, 2022 Our review “Assembly, Properties, and Application of Ordered Group II–VI and IV–VI Colloidal Semiconductor Nanoparticle Films” has been published in Advanced Materials Interfaces! We’re also thrilled to contribute the Inner Back Cover picture for the October edition!
Sep 9, 2022 I have been elected yPC chairperson!
Jun 26, 2022 New preprint on ChemRxiv! We directly functionalized thin CdSe quantum dot films with mlecular hydrogenase mimics and provided in-depth characterization of the functionalization and catalytic activity. Great collaboration between Leibniz-IPHT, Uni Jena, and Uni Ulm!
Feb 5, 2022 My rebuttal to the Krylov et al. article about Cancel Culture in Chemistry has been published on the GDCh app as well.
Nov 26, 2021 I updated the publication list to include whether an article is Open Access or not. Hopefully, many more to come!

selected publications

  1. Macromolecules
    Self-healing Functional Polymers: Optical Property Recovery of Conjugated Polymer Films by Uncatalyzed Imine Metathesis
    Johannes Ahner, Mathias Micheel, Robert Geitner, Michael Schmitt, Jürgen Popp, Benjamin Dietzek, and Martin D. Hager
    Macromolecules
  2. J. Phys. Chem. Lett.
    Ultrafast Electron Transfer from CdSe Quantum Dots to an [FeFe]-Hydrogenase Mimic
    Alexander Schleusener, Mathias Micheel, Stefan Benndorf, Markus Rettenmayr, Wolfgang Weigand, and Maria Wächtler
    The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters
  3. Adv. Mater. Interfaces
    Assembly, Properties, and Application of Ordered Group II–VI and IV–VI Colloidal Semiconductor Nanoparticle Films
    Mathias Micheel, Raktim Baruah, Krishan Kumar, and Maria Wächtler
    Advanced Materials Interfaces