Latest News

Weaver Emma Wood joins PDI as 2026 Artist-in-Residence. In this interview, she talks about twenty years inside the "strict planning" of her craft, why she's excited to be the elephant in the room at a physics institute, and what a conversation between a weaver and a physicist might sound like.

PDI is pleased to announce that João Marcelo Lopes has been invited to join the DFG Cluster of Excellence "Center for Chiral Electronics" (CCE) as an associate partner. This invitation is a direct reflection of Lopes's standing in the field, and opens a valuable new channel connecting PDI's epitaxy and materials expertise with the Cluster's work on chirality-driven device concepts.

Congratulations to Jingxuan Kang, who successfully defended his doctoral thesis, “(In,Ga)N Layer Growth on Planar Substrates and Top-Down Nanowires,” on July 9th, 2026. Jingxuan completed his PhD jointly at PDI and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, conducting his research under the supervision of Lutz Geelhaar at PDI.

Research data are key to advancing materials research in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Through a Memorandum of Understanding, five Berlin research institutions have agreed to establish a long-term collaboration in the areas of research data, data infrastructures, and AI.

Researchers from PDI, IKZ, Kenyon College, and the University of Toledo have resolved the long-debated electronic structure of chromium nitride, establishing it as a narrow-gap semiconductor with a bandgap of ~0.15 eV, opening new possibilities for mid-infrared photonics and spintronics.

PDI researchers, together with groups at Linköping University and the University of Potsdam, have identified why organic solar cells struggle to exceed 20% efficiency and found a practical route past it. The findings are published in Nature Photonics.

PDI is delighted to announce Emma Wood as the winner of the Artist-in-Residence Programme 2026. A Berlin-based weaver, Emma will spend three months embedded at the institute, exploring the connections between heritage weaving and materials science. Nine runners-up are also announced.

PDI has been granted EFRE funding to establish GISEH, a new application laboratory offering industry and academic partners rapid access to real-time X-ray diffraction characterisation of advanced materials — enabling iteration cycles that are otherwise inaccessible to many potential users.

How can concepts from physics help us understand social change? In an in-depth interview with the Substack channel "Glück. Schmerz. Politik.", Dr. Carsten Hucho, Head of the Technology and Transfer Department and Scientific-Administrative Coordinator at PDI, draws parallels between phase transitions in matter and tipping points in society.

PDI's Alexander Kuznetsov is at the heart of a new c't Magazin deep-dive into one of quantum physics' most intriguing frontiers: time crystals. This exotic state of matter pulses in a regular rhythm, repeating not in space, but in time. The article traces their journey from theoretical idea to experimental breakthrough, and asks what role they might one day play in precision sensing, data storage, and quantum computing.