Key Research Areas
Jewelry and gemstones are an important present-day economic factors. Questions about the origin of materials and minerals, processes for treating them, but also the production of synthetic imitations are clarified using the appropriate analytical material-science techniques.
The expertise at the Department includes non-destructive material analysis and identification, in particular the understanding of the origin of color varieties, as well as the distinguishability of natural and synthetic materials.
Topaz in white light (left), topaz emitting red light when illuminated with violet light at 405 nm (right)
The crystallography of minerals is focused on the atomic arrangement in the crystal structure or the metric of the crystal lattice and the related structure-property relationships.
Expertise at the Department includes the use of modern diffraction techniques (X-ray, synchrotron, electron) to determine complex mineral structures, measure precise lattice-related parameters, and perform X-ray phase identification. In-situ experimental techniques also allow to study structure-property relationships of minerals and phase transformations under variable P,T conditions.
Schematic representation of a crystal structure
Materials and building materials have always had a formative influence on the development of mankind. Starting from natural raw mineral materials, the development of modern materials and building materials, their properties and behavior, as well as recycling and reusability are the focus of materials science research in the technical age.
Expertise at the Department includes modern microporous materials (zeolites and catalytically active framework structures), high-tech construction materials and their manufacturing processes, mineral color pigments, and the properties of nanostructured mineral particles.
REM image of synthetic zeolite
Spectroscopic techniques are powerful analytical techniques for interpreting internal structures of minerals, from point defects to nascent microscale growth structures.
Expertise at the Department includes the use of spatially resolved measurement techniques (Raman, infrared, absorption spectroscopy) related to crystal-induced anisotropy, the interpretation of structures of growth- and transformation-induced formation or transformation of minerals, the crystallochemical role of hydrogen in mineral structures, as well as optical spectroscopy for coloration in minerals.
This Raman map shows color coded the strain distribution in a diamond around an inclusion.
Mineral physics under exceptional environmental conditions is the basis for understanding the behavior of geomaterials and mineral components, which are significantly involved in the formation of planets, their moons, but also exoplanets.
Expertise at the Department includes the ability to perform experimental in-situ measurements that allow pressures up to the megabar range, while covering temperature variations from surface temperatures on icy moons to the deep interior of the Earth. Thermomechanical properties, phase stabilities and structural transformations under extreme conditions are the focus of interest.
Illustration "Astromineralogy"
Environmental mineralogy contributes to understanding the behavior of elements in ecosystems that are in material cycles of nature due to natural processes but also anthropogenic activities (agriculture, industry, mining, waste management, energy production).
Expertises at the Department include the possible immobilization of pollutants or elements harmful to health in stable mineral host phases. Special focus is on radiogenic isotopes and their incorporation into radiation-resistant silicates and phosphates on the one hand, and on the formation processes of heavy metal hydrates for the binding of toxic heavy metals (e.g. thallium, arsenic) on the other hand.
Hammer on contaminated soil