Sabine Ludwigs

Sabine Ludwigs studied chemistry at the University of Bayreuth, Germany (1997-2002), and then carried out her diploma (2001-2002) and PhD (2002-2004) in the field of “Physical chemistry of polymers “ at Bayreuth University in the group of Prof. G. Krausch.  Here she systematically studied the self-assembly of block copolymers in bulk and in thin films. Her investigations ranged from the synthesis towards possible applications in nanotechnology. Following her PhD studies she joined the group of Prof. U. Steiner at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, UK (2004-2006), as a postdoctoral researcher where she extended her expertise towards patterning of polymer films from the micrometer to the nanometer scale. First applications of block copolymers as templates for dye-sensitized solar cells could be shown. During the time in Cambridge she collaborated with laboratories in Bristol (UK) and Strasbourg (F).

In October 2006, Sabine Ludwigs joined the Institute for Macromolecular Chemistry and the Freiburg Materials Research Center in Freiburg and started to establish her own research team. She was recently awarded with a Emmy Noether grant from the German Science Foundation (DFG). In November 2008 she was appointed as a Junior Fellow at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS) in the School of Soft Matter Research.

Further funding is provided by the Landesstiftung Baden-Württemberg within the Elite Program for young researchers and by the DFG in the framework of the priority program on “Elementary Processes in Organic Solar Cells”. The latter is a collaboration project with the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. Sabine Ludwigs is involved in the teaching of undergraduates in the Institute for Macromolecular Chemistry and lectures one month a year as an invited professor at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg (since 2007).

Her interdisciplinary research team of physical and macromolecular chemists is working on the synthesis and the morphological and electrochemical characterization of tailor-made opto-electronic polymers and inorganic nanoparticles. One of the main aims is to understand and control structure-function relationships of materials which have potential use in applications such as photoactive layers in organic solar cells.

FRIAS Project

Correlation between structure and electronic function of conjugated semiconducting polymers

The project within FRIAS is focusing on the synthesis of semiconducting conjugated polymers and the characterization of their electronic properties. Particularly interesting are highly regioregular poly(3-hexyl thiophenes) which can be regarded as one-dimensional semiconductors. Electrochemical measurements combined with in-situ spectroscopy and conductivity measurements are used to understand conductivity and absorption behavior upon electrochemical doping. Transistor measurements of highly crystalline domains shall further be performed to get a better understanding of the correlation between charge transport and structure.

1. E.J. Crossland, K.Tremel, F. Fischer, K. Rahimi, G. Reiter, U. Steiner, S. Ludwigs: Anisotropic Charge Transport in Spherulitic Poly(3-hexylthiophene) Films. Adv Mater, 2012; 24 (6): 839-844. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/adma.201104284
2. E. J. W. Crossland, P. Cunha, S. Ludwigs, M. A. Hillmyer, U. Steiner: In situ Electrochemical Monitoring of Selective Etching in Ordered Mesoporous Block-Copolymer Templates ACS Appl. Mater. Interfaces, 2011; 3: 1375-1379
3. E. J. W. Crossland, K. Rahimi, G. Reiter, U. Steiner, S. Ludwigs: Systematic Control of Nucleation Density in Poly(3-Hexylthiophene) Thin Films Adv Funct Mater, 2011; 21: 518-524
4. C.H. Braun, B. Schopf, C. Ngov, E.J.W. Crossland, S. Ludwigs: Synthesis and Thin Film Phase Behaviour of Functional Rod-Coil Block Copolymers Based on Poly(para-phenylenevinylene) and Poly(lactic acid) Macromol Rapid Comm, 2011; 32 (11): 813-819
5. C.H. Braun, T.V. Richter, F. Schacher, A.H.E. Müller, E.J.W. Crossland, S. Ludwigs: Block Copolymer Micellar Nanoreactors for the Directed Synthesis of ZnO Nanoparticles Macromolecular Rapid Communications, 2010; 31 (8): 729-734: http://10.1002/marc.200900798
6. E.J.W. Crossland, S. Ludwigs, M. A. Hillmyer, U. Steiner: Control of gyroid forming block copolymer templates: effects of an electric field and surface topography Soft Matter, 2010; 6 (3): 670-676
7. J. Heinze, B. Frontana-Uribe, S. Ludwigs: The electrochemistry of conducting polymers: Persistent models, new concepts Chemical Reviews, 2010; 110 (8): 4724-4771
8. O. Yurchenko, J. Heinze, S. Ludwigs: Electrochemically induced formation of independent conductivity regimes in polymeric tetraphenylbenzidine systems: new insights into the conductivity mechanism of conjugated polymers Chemphyschem, 2010; 11 (8):1637-1640
9. S. Link, T. Richter, O. Yurchenko, J. Heinze, S. Ludwigs: Electrochemical Behavior of Electropolymerized and Chemically Synthesized Hyperbranched Polythiophenes Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 2010; 114 (33): 10703-10708
10. T.V. Richter, F. Stelzl, J. Schulz-Gericke, B. Kerscher, U. Würfel, M. Niggemannad, S. Ludwigs: Room temperature vacuum-induced ligand removal and patterning of ZnO nanoparticles: from semiconducting films towards printed electronics Journal of Materials Chemistry, 2010; 20 (5): 874-879
11. A.S. Finnemore, M.R.J. Scherer, R. Langford, S. Mahajan, S. Ludwigs, F.C. Meldrum, U. Steiner: Nanostructured Calcite Single Crystals with Gyroid Morphologies Advanced Materials, 2009; 21 (38-3): 3928
12. E.J.W. Crossland, M. Kamperman, M. Nedelcu, C. Ducati, U. Wiesner, D.M. Smilgies, G.E.S. Toombes, M. Hillmyer, S. Ludwigs, U. Steiner, H.J. Snaith: A Bicontinuous Double Gyroid Hybrid Solar Cell Nano Letters, 2009; 9 (8): 2807-2812
13. E.J.W. Crossland, M. Nedelcu, C. Ducati, S. Ludwigs, M.A. Hillmyer, U. Steiner, H.J. Snaith: Block Copolymer Morphologies in Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells: Probing the Photovoltaic Structure-Function Relation Nano Letters, 2009; 9 (8): 2813-2819
14. T.V. Richter, S. Link, R. Hanselmann, S. Ludwigs: Design of Soluble Hyperbranched Polythiophenes with Tailor-Made Optoelectronic Properties Macromolecular Rapid Communications, 2009; 30 (15): 1323-1327
15. E.J.W. Crossland, M. Kamperman, M. Nedelcu, C. Ducati, U. Wiesner, D.M. Smilgies, G.E.S. Toombes, M. Hillmyer, S. Ludwigs, U. Steiner, H. Snaith, A bicontinuous double gyroid solar cell, Nano Lett. (2008)
16. N. E. Voicu, S. Ludwigs, U. Steiner, Alignment of lamellar block copolymers via electrohydrodynamically–driven micropatterning, Adv. Mater. 20, 2008, 3022.
17. E.J.W. Crossland, S. Ludwigs, M. Hillmyer, U. Steiner, Freestanding nanowire arrays from soft-etch block copolymer templates, Soft Matter 3, 2007, 94.
18. S. Ludwigs, U. Steiner, R. Lam, A. Kulak, F.C. Meldrum, Bioinspired polymer-inorganic hybrid materials, Adv. Mater. 18, 2006, 2270.
19. S. Ludwigs, A. Böker, A. Voronov, N. Rehse, R. Magerle, G. Krausch, Self-assembly of functional nanostructures from ABC triblock copolymers, Nature Mater. 2(11), 2003, 744.