In the semiconductor industry, nearly all conventional electronic components, such as those used in silicon electronics, consist of inorganic materials. The priority programme Organic Field Effect Transistors. Structural and Dynamic Properties gives an impulse for pure research in the area of organic polymer electronics. Physicists, chemists, materials scientists and electrical engineers want to establish the scientific foundations of the function, manufacture and characterisation of these new components, which are regarded as key elements of tomorrow s chip cards and displays. It is not only people who get old.
Buildings do, too.
The reason for this is that many of the materials used in building have a porous microstructure. In the course of time, gases and liquids can penetrate the mineral substance and damage or even destroy the material through physical and chemical interactions. In the priority programme Forecasting the Temporal Progression of Physical and Chemical Damage Processes in Mineral Materials, new, reliable methods are developed to be able to predict and influence these processes in a better way. In the course of evolution, structures have developed in nature, for example among plants, that make them very light and, at the same time, very stable and robust. Costly processes are required for the manufacture of most metallic materials.