Dr. Michael Kathan

Dr. Michael Kathan erforscht künstliche molekulare Motoren, die durch Lichtenergie angetrieben werden und gezielt Moleküle mechanisch verformen und zusammensetzen können. Sein aktueller Fokus liegt darauf, die Rotationsdynamik dieser Motoren auf der Femtosekunden-Ebene zu messen und sie zur Synthese von mechanisch verschlungenen Molekülstrukturen (Rotaxane, Catenane) einzusetzen — Strukturen, die mit klassischen chemischen Methoden nicht oder nur schwer herzustellen sind. Die Technologie eröffnet Perspektiven für präzise molekulare Fertigung und könnte langfristig in der Materialwissenschaft, Nanotechnologie und möglicherweise in der Entwicklung von Nanomaterialien mit maßgeschneiderten Eigenschaften relevant werden.

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• Nanoskopische Maschinen verzahnen chemische Strukturen (NanoMECHs)

  Quelle ↗

  Förderer: DFG Nachwuchsgruppe Zeitraum: 10/2023 - 09/2026 Projektleitung: Dr. Michael Kathan

• Photoswitchable molecules as key ingredients to drive systems away from the global thermodynamic minimum

  2017

  Chemical Society Reviews · DOI

  In order to perform chemical work, molecular systems have to be operated away from thermodynamic equilibrium and therefore require the input of energy. Light is perhaps the most abundant and advantageous energy source that in combination with photoswitches allows for a reversible and hence continuous stimulation of a system. In this review, we illustrate how photoswitchable molecules can be used to escape the global thermodynamic minimum by populating metastable states, from which energy can be transferred and transformed in a controlled fashion. We emphasize the unique feature of photodynamic equilibria, in which population of the states is dictated by the excitation wavelength (and not primarily by temperature), thereby avoiding microscopic reversibility since the photoreaction involves an electronically excited state. Thus, photoswitchable molecular systems can remotely be controlled with high spatial and temporal resolution and in addition their action can be fueled by light.

• Control of Imine Exchange Kinetics with Photoswitches to Modulate Self‐Healing in Polysiloxane Networks by Light Illumination

  2016

  Angewandte Chemie International Edition · DOI

  Various aldehyde-containing photoswitches have been developed whose reactivity toward amines can be controlled externally. A thermally stable bifunctional diarylethene, which in its ring-closed form exhibits imine formation accelerated by one order of magnitude, was used as a photoswitchable crosslinker and mixed with a commercially available amino-functionalized polysiloxane to yield a rubbery material with viscoelastic and self-healing properties that can be reversibly tuned by irradiation.