Dr. Andrea Kirsch: NRW return scholarship for innovative research!

Dr. Andrea Kirsch: NRW return scholarship for innovative research!

Dr. Andrea Kirsch has received a NRW return scholarship and will take up the junior professorship for Oxidic Functional Materials at the Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) from March 2025. Her research focus is on high entropy oxides (HEOs), a promising class of materials that has become increasingly important in recent years. These materials are characterized by containing multiple elements in nearly equal amounts within a single crystallographic structure. In the RUB Faculty of Chemistry and Biochemistry she will conduct research as part of the project “High-entropy oxides as innovative energy materials”, which is financed by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia news.rub.de reported.

Andrea Kirsch's goal is to discover new types of HEO structures and to understand their atomic and electronic structures. The key to their research is optimizing the performance of these materials for various energy applications. In order to pursue these goals, she uses the most modern characterization techniques, especially at the DESY electron synchrotron in Hamburg. These techniques make it possible to observe changes in the structure of materials in real time and to better understand the relationships between synthesis, structure and function.

Academic career and planned courses

Andrea Kirsch has gone through remarkable stages in her academic career. From 2007 to 2011 she completed a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering at the Jade University Wilhelmshaven, followed by a master's degree in materials science mineralogy, chemistry and physics at the University of Bremen (2011-2013). Her doctorate in solid state chemistry was completed in 2018, followed by two postdoc positions in Bremen and Copenhagen until 2024. With the return scholarship, she will lead an independent junior research group and offer innovative courses on topics such as “Synthesis methods and structural characterization in materials chemistry”.

The importance of high entropy oxides

Research on high-entropy oxides is of great importance and is also supported by Abhishek Sarkar's dissertation at the Technical University of Darmstadt. This dissertation investigates the structure and properties of HEOs resulting from the integration of five or more elements into the cationic sublattices of oxide materials. Sarkar highlights the versatility of high-entropy design in oxides and shows that these materials potentially offer a range of applications, particularly in lithium-ion battery storage as well as optical and magnetic applications, as detailed tubiblio.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de explained.

Today's research projects show that high-entropy materials could play a role not only in the areas of energy technology, but also in the development of efficient hydrogen storage. Experiments that investigate the deformation of crystals under high pressure provide valuable insights into the material properties, such as petra4.desy.de is explained. The combination of these innovative approaches promises to advance the future development of electronic components and quantum technologies.