AG Oettel: Computational Soft Matter and Nano-Science
Crystallization in colloidal systems: Hard spheres or hard sphere-like colloids are model system to study crystal properties and nucleation kinetics on micrometer scales. We develop and employ very precise density functional methods (Fundamental Measure Theory) to describe these systems and study the relation of effective models such as Phase Field Crystal to this precise density functional description. This work has been supported by the DFG Priority Programm SPP 1296 Heterogeneous Nucleation (2009-2014) and currently by the DFG in a joint project with TU Vienna (Prof.Gerhard Kahl) and Uni Konstanz (Prof. Matthias Fuchs).
Lattice Models: Lattice models are a robust workhorse in Statistical Physics to gain insights into equilibrium (e.g. phase diagrams) and nonequilibrium. Even for the lattice gas (Ising model), there are few analytical results available and most of the work has to be done numerically. We investigate models with rod-like particles (liquid crystals) using density functional theory, simulations and machine learning. This work is supported by the DFG since 2020. The machine learning aspects are supported by the local Cluster of Excellence "Machine Learning".
More information is available on the group homepage of Martin Oettel.