In the advent of the ever-progressing human development at the expense of our earthly resources and worrying global climate change, energy and materials efficiency, the generation and consumption of electrical energy and, above all, its storage have become important issues for our society. Novel concepts and materials with specifically adapted properties contribute to mitigate or solve those challenges.

The Energy Materials group utilises established and modern crystallography-inspired experimental and theoretical methods of structural science, including crystal chemistry and electrochemistry. They are used to elucidate structure-property relationships of crystalline matter and to develop new technological approaches and solutions in the field of energy conversion and storage.

A particular focus is on battery materials (ionic conductors and grid-based current collectors), materials with complex structural intricacies at the atomic level including modulated structures and aperiodic crystals, electron densities determined by X-ray diffraction, knowledge acquisition and machine learning.

The work focusses on materials from the fields of energy conversion and storage, such as ionic conductors, intercalation electrodes, current collectors, pyroelectrics, but also on intermetallic phases and thin films. Other topics include methodological work on X-ray diffraction, the application of functionalised textile fabrics, the investigation of dyes for organic solar cells and the construction of demonstrators. The head of the working group is Tilmann Leisegang.