Richard Hildner did his PhD in the group of Prof. Juergen Koehler (Sepctroscopy of Soft Matter, University of Bayreuth) on single-molecule and non-linear spectroscopy of conjugated polymers. After a postdoc with Prof. Niek van Hulst at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) in Castelldefels/Barcelona, he moved back to University of Bayreuth as senior researcher and group leader. In 2018 he joined the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials as associate professor and head of the group Optical Spectroscopy of Functional Nanosystems. The research in his group focusses on investigating the optical and electronic properties of functional molecules, conjugated polymers and supramolecular nanostructures, to establish structure-property relationships and to resolve energy transport within tailored nanostructures in space and time. Experimentally the group exploits optical microscopy and spectroscopy to study mainly single objects (molecules/nanostructures) with a high spatial resolution and on all timescales, from few femtoseconds up to seconds and minutes. Richard Hildner obtained his PhD with summa cum laude, he received the Michael D. Sturge Prize for young researchers in the field of condensed matter spectroscopy for his seminal contributions in the development of quantum coherence spectroscopy on individual molecules/objects, and he was awarded Teacher of the Year in the Nanoscience Master programme organised by the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials. Richard Hildner is a regular reviewer for e.g. American Chemical Society, Nature Publishing Group, German Research Foundation, Swedish Research Council.

3 top publications:

[1] Wittmann, F. Wenzel, S. Wiesneth, A. T. Haedler, M. Drechsler, K. Kreger, J. Köhler, E. W. Meijer, H.-W. Schmidt, R. Hildner. Enhancing Long-Range Energy Transport in Supramolecular Architectures by Tailoring Coherence Properties. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 142 (2020) 8323 – 8330.

Exploiting hierarchical self-assembly of functional molecules allowed us to manipulate the coherence properties (delocalisation) of molecular excitons within nanostructures and thus their transport dynamics. We resolved this dynamics on single nanostructures in space and time for the first time.

[2] Raithel, L. Simine, S. Pickel, K. Schötz, F. Panzer, S. Baderschneider, D. Schiefer, R. Lohwasser, J. Köhler, M. Thelakkat, M. Sommer, A. Köhler, P. J. Rossky, R. Hildner. Direct observation of backbone planarisation via side-chain alignment in single bulky-subsituted polythiophenes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 115 (2018) 2699 – 2704.

We resolved the impact of side-chain substitution of conjugated polymers on their chain conformation and electronic properties, i.e., the intra-chain delocalisation of electronic excitations, using single molecule spectroscopy. Contrary to common notion, we found that bulky side groups improve planarity of backbones.

[3] Wilma, C.-C. Shu, U. Scherf, R. Hildner. Visualising Hidden Ultrafast Processes in Individual Molecules by Single-Pulse Coherent Control. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 140 (2018) 15329 – 15335.

In this publication we report for the first time a fluorescence-detected coherent control experiment on a 2-photon transition of single molecules at room temperature. We used this approach to resolve transitions into a highly excited state, which is usually “hidden”, i.e., not visible, in a single-molecule experiment.