Karls­ruhe Insti­tute of Tech­no­logy — Insti­tute of Func­tion­al Inter­faces (IFG)

The research object of the Insti­tute of Func­tion­al Inter­faces (IFG) is the study of molecu­lar inter­ac­tions at sur­faces of solids in con­tact with nat­ur­al and tech­nic­al sys­tems. The research strategy is based on the invest­ig­a­tion of fun­da­ment­al pro­cesses on the nano-scale up to a con­sequent applic­a­tion of the found know­ledge on the macro-scale of tech­nic­al systems.

Research foci include: Syn­thes­is, char­ac­ter­iz­a­tion and applic­a­tion of func­tion­al­ized hybrid mater­i­als and mag­net­ic particles in pro­cess engin­eer­ing and bio­tech­no­logy; Char­ac­ter­iz­a­tion of mod­i­fied sur­faces; Inter­ac­tions of biofilms with nat­ur­al and tech­nic­al sur­faces; Bac­teri­al stress and fit­ness reactions.