Curriculum Vitae of S. Rathgeber

Dr. Silke Rathgeber joined the Soft Matter Department at the Solid State Physics Institute at the Forschungszentrum Jülich in April 2000 with the long term prospective of doing a "Habilitation".

She studied physics at the Heinrich-Heine-University in Düsseldorf and received her master degree in 1993. During her diploma thesis she worked with Prof. Dr. A. Otto at the Surface Science Department of the Heinrich-Heine-University on the investigation of catalytic reactions on thin metal films with conductivity measurements.

For her PhD thesis she joined the group of Prof. Dr. D. Richter at the Solid State Institute (IFF) at the Forschungszentrum Jülich. The main focus of her work was on the dynamics of polymers in melts. Major research interests were the investigations of the single chain dynamics in bimodal melts as well as the collective dynamics of diblock-copolymers at the order-disorder transition (ODT). The main investigation tools were neutron spin-echo (NSE) spectroscopy, small angle neutron scattering (SANS), rheology and pulsed-field gradient nuclear magnetic resonance (PFG-NMR). She graduated in 1997 at the Rheinisch Westfälischen Technischen Hochschule (RWTH) Aachen with the thesis "Polymer Dynamics in Bimodal Polyethylene Melts".

During her post-doc at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA from 1998 to 2000 she was involved in building and commissioning the new NSE spectrometer at the NIST Center for Neutron Research. Furthermore she established her own research field on the static and dynamic properties of polymers with a well-defined architecture such as starburst and star-like dendrimers or bottlebrush macromolecules. Currently she is extending her work to biological polymers such cellulose derivate solutions, which show supramolecular structures and the hyper-branched polysaccharide glycogen. Of interest are the shape and the internal dynamicsas well as ordering phenomena and collective dynamics in solutions and melts. With an insitu-rheometer for simultaneous SANS experiments becoming available recently future work will also focus on the relation of microstructure to rheological response in these systems. Other investigation tools are NSE spectroscopy, X-ray photo correlation spectroscopy, small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and dynamic and static light scattering.

Research Interests of S. Rathgeber

Static and Dynamic Properties of

• Dendrimers

• Bottlebrush Macromolecules

• "Hairy" Colloids (Micelles, polymer coated colloids)

• Polysaccharides

and Insitu-Rheology

Selected Publications of S. Rathgeber

1. Structural Properties for Star-like Dendrimers
   S. Rathgeber, A.P. Gast, J.L. Hedrick, submitted to J. Applied Phys. A,
2. Structure of Starburst Dendrimers: Comparison Between SAXS and Computer Simulation Results
   S. Rathgeber, T. Pakula, V. Urban, ACS preprint, PMSE, 84, (2001)
3. Polymer Dynamics in Bimodal Polyethylene Melts: A Study with Neutron Spin-Echo Spectroscopy and Pulsed Field-Gradient Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
   S. Rathgeber, L. Willner, D. Richter, A. Brulet, B. Farago, M. Appel, G. Fleischer; J. Chem. Phys. 110, 10171 (1999)
4. Neutron Spin-Echo Investigation of the Concentration Fluctuation Dynamics in Melts of Diblock-Copolymer
   H. Montes, M. Monkenbusch, L. Willner, S. Rathgeber, L. Fetters, D. Richter; J. Chem. Phys. 110, 10188 (1999)
5. Neutron Spin-Echo Spectroscopy at the NIST Center for Neutron Research
   N. Rosov, S. Rathgeber, M. Monkenbusch; in Scattering from Polymers-Characterization by X-rays, Neutrons, and Light; ACS Symposium Series Vol. 739 (1999), pp. 103
6. Chain Motion in an Unentangled Polyethylene Melt: A Critical Test of the Rouse Model by Molecular Dynamic Simulations and Neutron Spin-Echo Spectroscopy
   W. Paul, G.D. Smith, D.Y. Yoon, B. Farago, S. Rathgeber, A. Zirkel, L. Willner and D. Richter; Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 2346 (1998)