It was in his lecture on being awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1991 that Frenchman Pierre-Gilles de Gennes coined the term "soft matter" to describe this particular group of materials. "Since then, research into soft matter has steadily become more relevant and increased," points out Sebastian Seiffert, Professor for Physical Chemistry of Polymers at the JGU Department of Chemistry. Seiffert is coordinating the new Master's program "Soft Matter and Materials" in Mainz, which started in the 2023/2024 winter semester in collaboration with TU Darmstadt and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research.

This M.Sc. program is one of the flagship projects of the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) alliance. The program coordinator at TU Darmstadt is Professor Regine von Klitzing from the Institute for Condensed Matter Physics (IPKM). In fact, von Klitzing and Seiffert have already been working together since 2019 in the Research Unit FOR 2811 on Adaptive Polymer Gels with Model-Network Structure, which is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). But they knew each other even before that – from scientific exchange when they were both employed at Freie Universität Berlin and Technische Universität Berlin, respectively. Seiffert was then appointed to a position at JGU in 2016 while Klitzing took up a professorship in Darmstadt in 2017. In Berlin, she had already gained experience as coordinator of the Polymer Science degree course there. "We learned a great deal from this experience," says von Klitzing.

With its clear focus on soft matter, however, the international M.Sc. program of the RMU alliance is one of the first of its kind in the world. In an interview with our JGU Magazine, von Klitzing and Seiffert talk about the enormous future potential associated with this field of research.

What is soft matter?

Most of us are not familiar with the term "soft matter" and what it describes. "Well, the term actually encompasses a very wide group of different materials," explains von Klitzing. From the purely physical point of view, soft matter is indeed "soft" and can be easily deformed because its individual components are only loosely bound to each other. Many polymers are members of this family as are amphiphilic materials – such as soaps, detergents, and surfactants – and colloids and suspensions. We are using soft matter materials every day. "Even life itself is based on soft matter,” adds Seiffert. "The reason life has proved to be so successful is not because it is perfect but because it is, in a manner of speaking, very much defect-tolerant," he observes. "There is a wealth of physiological mechanisms designed to repair defects but for this there need to be structures that are reversible in the first place. And soft matter has precisely these abilities to multiply and repair."

Soft matter is currently explored and employed as a very promising material mainly in biomedicine and in cleantech applications designed to transform processes to make them climate-neutral. "Soft matter is a major component in the development of materials that can be used in personalized medicine," says Seiffert. "Without them, the stabilization of mRNA for use in vaccines against coronavirus would not have been possible to achieve so rapidly." The properties of this class of materials can also be exploited for the targeted release of pharmacologically active agents. For instance, soft matter is able to differentiate between the temperature of healthy tissue and inflamed tissue or between the distinctive pH levels in healthy tissue and tumor tissue. In the field of cleantech, soft matter can be used to create membranes for fuel cells or hydrogels for innovative, decentralized desalination plants.

Bringing theory and experiment together

The Master's program on Soft Matter and Materials starts either in the winter semester in Mainz or in the summer semester in Darmstadt. This is then followed by a specialization semester and research semester. In the fourth semester, the participants prepare their Master's thesis. "The collaboration between our two universities and with the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research allows for an exceptionally interdisciplinary approach to the subject," emphasizes Professor Regine von Klitzing. Now based in Darmstadt, she has known Mainz University from the time she was working towards her doctorate in the mid-1990s and she has stayed in touch with Mainz-based colleagues. In addition to chemistry and physics, the course also covers materials sciences and mathematics. Both universities contribute their areas of special expertise to the study of polymer science. In the case of JGU, this involves the interfaces with the life sciences. At TU Darmstadt, this takes the form of process engineering, for example, in the field of technical chemistry. Essentially, theory and experiment are designed to enrich each other.

In addition to the interdisciplinary approach of the Soft Matter and Materials degree program, internationalization is also a major feature of the course completely taught in English. "We had to adapt some lectures and seminars to be held in English, but it all went very well," recalls Seiffert. In fact, all students in the first year of the M.Sc. course came from non-German-speaking countries –from non-EU states, the Indian subcontinent, and even the Far East.

Those who decide to enroll in this international Master's degree program in Mainz and Darmstadt will not only be gaining qualifications in the right subject at the right time but will also be doing this in the right place. Regine von Klitzing and Sebastian Seiffert are both convinced of this. "Here in the Rhine-Main region, we are surrounded by top-class businesses working in the field of soft matter. We are striving to enter into cooperation agreements with these businesses," states Seiffert. And von Klitzing also underlines the possibilities to facilitate contacts between the M.Sc. degree program and the industrial sector. "With this, we offer our students and graduates the very best opportunities for launching their individual careers."