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
- Consequences of a Single Double Bond within a Side-Group on the Ordering of Supra-Molecular Polymers
- Roozbeh Shokri, Olga Guskova, Asad Jamal, Kaiwan Jahanshahi, Benjamin Isare, Laurent Bouteiller, Laurent Simon, Jens-Uwe Sommer, Günter Reiter. The Journal of Physical Chemistry, Part C 119 (2015) 22596–22603
- Different surface sensing of the cell body and nucleus in healthy primary cells and in a cancerous cell line on nanogrooves
- Patricia Davidson, Maxence Bigerelle, Günter Reiter and Karine Anselm. Biointerphases 10, 031004 (2015) / DOI: 10.1116/1.4927556
- How Chain-Folding Crystal Growth Determines Thermodynamic Stability of Polymer Crystals
- Xiaoming Jiang, Günter Reiter, Wenbing Hu. J. Phys. Chem. B, 120 (2016) 566–571
- Stabilization of nuclei of lamellar polymer crystals: Insights from a comparison of the Hoffman-Weeks line with the crystallization line
- Jun Xu, Barbara Heck, Hai-Mu Ye, Jing Jiang, Yi-Ren Tang, Jin Liu, Bao-Hua Guo, Renate Reiter, Dongshan Zhou, Günter Reiter. Macromolecules 49 (2016) 2206–2215
- Role of Preparation Pathways and Tacticity on the Non-Equilibrium Dynamcis of Polystyrene Films
- Rishab Handa. Master Thesis im Studiengang M.Sc. Sustainable Materials, 2016
- Variation of the contact resistance with electric current for gold electrodes on a squaraine single crystal
- Leonid Govor, Guenter Reiter, and Jurgen Parisi. Phys. Status Solidi A 212 (2015) 2738–2746, DOI 10.1002/pssa.201532241
- Simulation of secondary nucleation of polymer crystallization via a model of microscopic kinetics
- Kun-Lun Xu, Bao-Hua Guo, Renate Reiter, Günter Reiter, Jun Xu. Chinese Chemical Letters 26, 1105–1108 (2015) / DOI: 10.1016/j.cclet.2015.06.002
- From holes to drops to toroids: Conditions for the transcription of surface patterns into three-dimensional morphologies via rim instabilities in the course of dewetting
- Samer Al Akhrass, Laurent Vonna and Günter Reiter. In: Polymer Surfaces in Motion: Unconventional Patterning Methods, Eds. Juan Rodriguez-Hernandez and Carlos Drummond. Springer 2015
- Tuning Morphologies of Langmuir Polymer Films Through Controlled Relaxations of Non-Equilibrium States
- Sivasurender Chandran, Stefanie Dold, Amaury Buvignier, Kai-Steffen Krannig, Helmut Schlaad, Günter Reiter, and Renate Reiter. Langmuir 2015, 31, 6426−6435. DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.5b01212
- High Temperature Stability of Dewetting-Induced Thin Polyethylene Filaments
- Bin Zhang, Jingbo Chen, Paul Freyberg, Renate Reiter, Rolf Mülhaupt, Jun Xu, Günter Reiter. Macromolecules 48, 1518–1523 (2015)
- Triangular dewetting by symmetry breaking in blends of stiff and flexible polymers
- Paul Freyberg. Inaugural-Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades der Fakultät für Mathematik und Physik der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 2015
- Conductive atomic force microscopy measurements on organic nanocrystals
- Sven Renkert. Master Thesis, Fakultät für Mathematik und Physik der Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, 2014
- The influence of the additive composition on degradation induced changes in poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) during photochemical aging
- Angelika Beinert, Cornelia Peike, Ines Dürr, Michael D. Kempe, Günter Reiter, Karl-Anders Weiß. 29th European PV Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 22-26 Sept. 2014, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Wie kristallisieren Polymere?
- Gert Strobl. Physik Journal 13, 47-50 (2014)
- The Crucial Role of Cadmium Acetate-Induced Conformational Restriction in Microscopic Structure and Stability of Polystyrene-block-Polyvinyl pyridine Thin Films
- Feifei Xue, Hongfei Li, Jichun You, Conghua Lu, Günter Reiter, Shichun Jiang. Polymer 55, 5801-5810 (2014)
- Molecular Weight Dependent Changes in Morphology of Solution Grown Polyethylene Single Crystals
- Bin Zhang, Jingbo Chen, Moritz C. Baier, Stefan Mecking, Renate Reiter, Rolf Mülhaupt, Günter Reiter. Macrom. Rapid Comm. 36, 181-189 (2015)
- Annealing-Induced Periodic Patterns in Solution Grown Polymer Single Crystals
- Bin Zhang, Jingbo Chen, Hui Zhang, Moritz C. Baier, Stefan Mecking, Renate Reiter, Rolf Mülhaupt, Günter Reiter, RSC Advances 5, 12974 (2015)
- Anisotropic Photophysical Properties of Highly Aligned Crystalline Structures of a Bulky Substituted Poly(thiophene)
- Yingying Wang, Barbara Heck, Daniel Schiefer, John O. Agumba, Michael Sommer, Tao Wen, and Günter Reiter. ACSMacroLett. 3, 881-885 (2014)
- Cellulose nanocrystals’ production in near theoretical yields by 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium hydrogen sulfate ([Bmim]HSO4) – mediated hydrolysis
- Jia Mao, Barbara Heck, Günter Reiter, Marie-Pierre Laborie. Carbohydrate Polymers 117, 443–451 (2015)
- Correlating polymer crystals via self-induced nucleation
- Hui Zhang, Muhuo Yu, Bin Zhang, Renate Reiter, Maximilian Vielhauer, Rolf Mülhaupt, Jun Xu, Günter Reiter. PhysRevLett 112, 237801 (2014)