The Max Planck Fellow Programme promotes cooperation between outstanding university professors and Max Planck Society researchers. The appointment of university professors as Max Planck Fellows is limited to a five-year period and also entails the supervision of a small working group at a Max Planck institute. Institutes have been able to apply for an extension to the funding period for Max Planck Fellows on a one-off basis since 2009. The option of a one-off extension also exists here. [more...]

The functionality of a material and its macroscopic response to external stimuli are dictated by the microscopic interactions of its elementary degrees of freedom – electrons, lattice, and spin. Understanding the fundamental mechanisms and complex many-body interactions that determine relevant material properties is a main goal of modern solid state research. In spatially inhomogeneous crystals, atomic-scale variations of the crystal lattice and/or its electronic structure will alter the microscopic response – may it be due to imperfection [more...]