Chair of Geomaterials and Crystalline Materials

Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources

Chair of Geomaterials and Crystalline Materials

Abkürzung der Fakultät für Umwelt und Natürliche Ressourcen "unr" in der Farbe sand auf grünem, kreisförmigen Hintergrund

The Geomaterials and Crystalline Materials group studies what happens to minerals and crystals when they’re pushed to their limits — like deep inside the Earth or during planetary collisions. We use high-tech experiments to recreate these extreme conditions and explore how materials behave under incredible pressure and temperature.

News

New Publication in Nature Computanional Materials

How Quartz Transforms Under Extreme Pressure

What happens to quartz at the surface of the Earth when it’s hit by an asteroid? Our new study provides detailed insights into the time-resolved structural alterations through cutting-edge machine learning computer simulations.

Beamtime 2025-03

Thermal conductivity measurement at high pressure and temperature

Why do some planets maintain protective magnetic fields while others don’t? The answer lies in thermal conductivity measurements from the extreme depths of planetary cores.

Beamtime 2024-11

Laser-driven compression experiment at the European X-Ray Free Electron Laser

In just 30 femtoseconds—faster than light can travel across a human hair—scientists are capturing the moment matter transforms under planetary-scale pressures, unveiling the physics that drives planetary formation and evolution across the universe.

Research

Want to know what rocks do at 3,000 °C and a million times atmospheric pressure?

Teaching

From Mineral Physics to Data Analytics