Doctoral Academy NanoGraz

In recent decades, the nanosciences have established themselves and have undoubtedly become one of, if not the most important, interdisciplinary field of research in the natural sciences. This can be seen from the large number of Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry that have been awarded in recent years in connection with this. In the nanosciences, the focus is on the miniaturization of functional structures, with length scales ranging from micrometres (a thousandth of a millimetre) to nanometres (which is then only a millionth of a millimetre). In the nanometer range, quantum effects play a central role, which means that classical physics fails. Essential processes in physics, chemistry and the life sciences take place on the scale of a few nanometers, meaning that the nanosciences must be interdisciplinary by their very nature. Not only the experimental characterization at these scales is important, but also the exact theoretical description of the phenomena in these dimensions is a challenge. Furthermore, the understanding of interfaces (such as solid-liquid, liquid-gas and solid-gas) is of fundamental importance, as they define the interactions in the agglomeration of small to large particles.

With the Doctoral Academy "NanoGraz", we want to further strengthen the interdisciplinary efforts in this subject area and link the participating institutes more closely together, thereby creating a common, coherent knowledge and insight base.