Dr.rer.nat. Peter Staffeld, , Germany

Interests & Goals Columnar phases of discotic liquid crystals are known to be promising photo sensitive one-dimensional semiconductors. Advantages of organic semiconductors are low weight, low cost, easy fabrication and high mechanical flexibility. The main task of my thesis is to correlate the structural aspects of discotic columnar liquid crystals to the details of charge carrier transport properties using polarisation microscopy, X-ray diffraction and different kinds of photoconductivity measurements.

P. Staffeld, M. Kaller, S.J. Beardsworth, K. Tremel, S. Ludwigs, S. Laschat, and F. Giesselmann
Design of conductive crown ether based columnar liquid crystals: impact of molecular flexibility and geometry
J. Mat. Chem. C, 1, 892–901 (2013)

M. Kaller, S.J. Beardsworth, P. Staffeld, S. Laschat
Increased mesophase range in liquid crystalline crown ethers via lower molecular symmetry
Liq. Cryst. 39, 5, 607-618 (2012)

M. Kaller, P. Staffeld, R. Haug, W. Frey, F. Giesselmann, S. Laschat
Substituted crown ethers as central units in discotic liquid crystals: effects of crown size and cation uptake
Liq. Cryst. 38, 5, 531-553(2011)