Welcome to the website of Prof. Dr. Markus Retsch

My team and I work on ordered and amorphous functional nanostructures using a wide variety of materials. Our investigations aim at the development of new and efficient energy materials that contribute to a sustainable future. We deal with various aspects of "heat" and do basic research in areas such as thermal insulation, thermal management and thermal radiation. Our research starts with the design of colloidal particles as basic building blocks to create well-defined nano- and mesostructured materials.

These building blocks are assembled into two- and three-dimensional arrays, which not only provides an additional length scale of structuring, but also leads to a wide range of other applications. We have developed simple yet reliable techniques to assemble colloidal spheres into ordered monolayers. Of particular interest are the optical, mechanical and thermal properties of latex particles, hollow spheres and plasmonic nanoparticles.

Our preparative work is flanked by specific method development and simulations. We also have a great interest in applying our developed methods to various systems and thus, for example, to create a better understanding of temperature distributions in batteries or textiles. At the Chair of Physical Chemistry 1 an interdisciplinary field from material synthesis to characterization is covered. This is reflected by the variety of ongoing projects, which range from wet chemistry to laser-optical measurement techniques, programming and simulation.