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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.

With the involvement of scientists from the Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics in Berlin and the Universities of Augsburg and Münster, international researchers have presented a new roadmap for surface acoustic waves. The publication outlines how this technology will evolve over the next ten years, spanning applications from signal processing to quantum technologies and the life sciences.

Congratulations to PDI scientist Hua Lv, whose poster "Transport Properties in All-Epitaxial Fe₅₋ₓGeTe₂/WSe₂ Van der Waals Heterostructures" was awarded Best Poster Presentation at IEEE INTERMAG 2026.

Threading dislocations are among the most stubborn obstacles to integrating III-V semiconductors on silicon. Filter layers help, but a long-standing puzzle has been why thermal annealing reshapes their internal defect network without actually reducing dislocation density. In this highlight, we present work by researchers at PDI and IES Montpellier who filmed individual dislocations in real time inside an electron microscope and identified the growth conditions under which filtering works best.

The Paul-Drude-Institut für Festkörperelektronik (PDI) in Berlin is opening applications for its Artist-in-Residence Program, offering Berlin-based artists a unique opportunity to immerse themselves in cutting-edge materials science research. The call is open until May 30, 2026.