Four disciplines united under a single roof

In the new research building Centre for Soft Nanoscience (SoN) researchers investigate how nanomaterials with complex properties and functions are produced in nature in order to follow this proven design strategy. Researchers at SoN prepare synthetic materials based on biological models, such as addressable nanocontainers or materials that switch their function in response to an external trigger. Besides these fundamental investigations, also the high-precision tools required to make and analyze these nanomaterials are developed at SoN. SoN is located at Busso-Peus-Straße 10, close to the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Biomedicine, the Centre for Nanotechnology (CeNTech), and the Multiscale Imaging Centre (MIC), which is currently under construction. The official inauguration of SoN took place in November 2018. With a floor space of almost 8000 square metres, the building will accommodate around 140 researchers from 14 research groups in the fields of chemistry, physics, biology and biomedicine. Around three quarters have already moved into SoN in the past few months.