Several goals were pursued in the development of this work, including the development of a novel in vivo method to measure the ciliary muscle of a human subject non-invasively during accommodation, the characterization of the recorded muscle signals based on the accommodative abilities of the subject, and the development of a device that would utilize the recorded muscle signals to mimic the appropriate level of accommodation for the user, actuated through the use of a variable refractive lens.

The risk to develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) depends on the number of traumatic events experienced and individual risk factors, e.g. genetic predispositions. However, to identify causal genetic variants of this polygenic disease, trauma exposure needs to be adequately assessed.

Fossil resources are increasingly depleted. They have to be replaced as quickly as possible by renewable raw materials, so that a slow transition to a new and modern production of „platform chemicals“ can take place.

The market’s demand for carbon fiber/epoxy composite has dramatically increased due to its significant applications and advantages in industry. Typical loading on the structures that are made up by this material often involves tensile and lateral bending of the composite laminates.

The exact position of atoms in the crystal structure of lanthanum manganites and cobaltates (both anorganic ionic compounds) significantly affects their magnetic properties. The crystal structure of these materials can be altered by pressure, substitution of elements, or crystallite size: Since nanoparticles have a large surface-to-volume ratio, their surface has a dominant effect on the crystal structure, leading to changes compared to bulk materials.

Metamaterials are rationally designed structures exhibiting effective macroscopic material properties that go beyond those of ordinary materials. For instance, by introducing so-called topologically protected resonances it is possible to locally enhance mechanical vibrations and make them robust against perturbations. In this project, chiral metamaterials with topologically protected resonances are designed and fabricated to realize a resonant mechanical laser-beam scanner (see Figure). Such laser-beam scanners are crucial for various applications such as LIDAR, confocal microscopy, projector displays, and material processing.

A rich variety of phenomena in solid state systems such as quantum magnetism or high temperature superconductivity still pose open questions on parts of their microscopic explanation. Due to the complexity of these systems, the underlying quantum many-body dynamics is often not accessible to computational simulation.

Increased anthropogenic activities and climate change are causing a global shift in patterns of water fluxes. Semi-arid river basins are characterized by more water stresses, extreme and sporadic climatic events, and have been projected to worsen in many regions under the influence of climate change.

Galactic archaeology uses stars as fossils to study the evolutionary history of galaxies like our own Milky Way. Cosmological simulations suggest that larger galaxies were partially formed by accreting smaller dwarf galaxies. Such merger events should leave observable signatures in the form of star streams, but empirical constraints on the times, numbers, and importance of such mergers are still missing.

In modern condensed matter physics topology plays a fundamental role in the classification of phases of matter. A prominent example is the quantum Hall effect discovered in two-dimensional electron gases under extreme conditions. Quantum Hall insulators are isolating in the bulk, but exhibit conducting edge states, which results in a quantised Hall conductance.