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Research profileField of Focus II

Patterns and Structures in Mathematics, Data, and the Material World

Laboratory results

This Field of Focus links synthetic chemistry with the physics of complex systems, pure mathematics with theoretical physics, and numerical mathematics with chemistry and physics. 

Field of Focus 2 aims at understanding common structures on all scales in the material world. It provides the infrastructure required to link the numerous common research interests of the three strong scientific-mathematical disciplines across subject boundaries.

The strengths of Field of Focus 2 are documented by the successful new Excellence Cluster STRUCTURES, involving in particular physics, mathematics and computational sciences, and by the Excellence Cluster 3D Matter Made to Order (3DMM2O) together with KIT in advanced (organic) materials science, which interconnects expertise from the computational sciences, chemistry, biophysics and the life sciences.

As part of an international collaborative network, the Faculty of Physics and Astronomy concentrates on three main subject areas: fundamental particles and their interaction, astrophysics and cosmology, and complex quantum systems, but has also ties to biophysics, environmental physics, and physical information technology. The Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science will continue to integrate its basic and applied subject areas and to intensify its internal, national and international networking. The Faculty of Chemistry and Geosciences has won international recognition through its fundamental research on catalysis and materials science, and the study of molecular structures and functions including their numerical modelling. This research affects related disciplines and creates cross-links to the life sciences and medicine.

Chemistry, mathematics, and physics have initiated collaborations to establish materials science as a further research focus in Heidelberg.