Teaching

There is an ancient joke: university life would be great without those students! What a plain nonsense that really is. Seriously, teaching is an extremely important part of our work and, given the right conditions, teaching may turn out as the most enjoyable duty of academic life, both for the students as well as for the professor. As this chair is part of the Institute of Inorganic Chemistry which is heavily involved in teaching, it also faces an exceptionally large teaching duty, with about 1,500 freshmen students every year, of which about 10% are chemists. The majority, however, comes from other faculties such as mechanical engineering, physics, biology, and so forth.
Within the fields of undergraduate (pre-diploma) studies, our courses comprise lectures in general chemistry for chemists and also biologists (with about 200 listeners, sometimes even more) and, very important at RWTH, for engineers (on the order of one thousand). In addition, there are courses in inorganic and analytical chemistry for chemists and also various laboratory courses in general as well as inorganic/analytical chemistry.
Within the graduate-study program, the courses are significantly smaller (ca. 30 people per class), and they cover synthetic solid-state chemistry, quantum chemistry of the solid state, laboratory courses in solid-state and computational chemistry and, not to forget, research internships (called "Forschungspraktika" in German) in synthetic solid-state chemistry, in X-ray crystallography, and in theoretical solid-state chemistry, giving students "hands-on" experience in current research.

If you wish to do your research internship ("Forschungspraktikum") in our group (either dealing with solid-state or quantum chemistry), you are very much welcome to visit our laboratories and talk to our coworkers enjoying their lives while working on their diploma theses and dissertations. You can also write an e-mail to Professor Dronskowski.

For further information about exams and research internships, please visit the website of Geschäftszimmer Chemie.

Lectures (Vorlesungen)

Wintersemester 2012/13

Link to RWTH Campus

Sommersemester 2012

Wintersemester 2011/12

Sommersemester 2011

Wintersemester 2010/11

Sommersemester 2010

Wintersemester 2009/10

Sommersemester 2009

Wintersemester 2008/9

Sommersemester 2008

Wintersemester 2007/8

Sommersemester 2007

Wintersemester 2006/7

Textbook

Describing solid-state materials with computational and theoretical models is now an important technique for solid-state chemists that makes it possible to gain insights into electronic and magnetic structure, as well as chemical bonding. In addition, chemists are now able to make predictions about materials that have yet to be synthesized, such that systematic and successful syntheses of new materials with specific properties and attributes are possible.
This is the first book to present both classical practical approaches as well as practical quantum-chemical approaches, incorporating new methods developed over the last few years. Written especially for "non"-theoretical readers in a very comprehensible and readily applicable style, it includes numerous practical examples of varying degrees of difficulty. On purpose, the use of mathematical equations is reduced to a minimum, focusing only on that which is important for experimentalists. Backed by many extensive tables containing detailed data for direct use in the calculations, this is the ideal companion for theoretical and solid-state chemists, materials scientists and physicists, wishing to improve their work in solid state research by using computational methods.

Review of the above book at Angewandte Chemie International Edition

Review of the above book at Chromatographia

Review of the above book at the Journal of the American Chemical Society

Review of the above book at Applied Organometallic Chemistry

Auditoria

AOC

The auditorium AOC, the largest lecture hall of the Aachen chemistry division, offers more than 500 seats, and this auditorium in our own institute is perfectly equipped for experimental lectures. We also use this lecture hall for written exams.

AC

The smaller auditorium AC has 100 seats. Lectures for advanced students and various colloquia are typically held here.

Audimax

This is the largest (therefore Auditorium Maximum = Audimax) lecture hall of RWTH, and it is needed whenever a very large number of people (for example, students of mechanical engineering) have to be taught General Chemistry. Despite the fact that it is not equipped for experiments, we manage to show a few exciting chemical experiments, no matter what.

Practical Courses

Chemistry is a strongly experimental science, yes it is. (Let's forget about theoretical chemistry for a while.) All chemistry students have to go through a multitude of practical courses to become "masters of matter". It may be tough, agreed, but someone should know how to handle chemicals, right? (Don't ask the physicists or biologists if you want to stay alive...) The figure shows how the laboratory for advanced inorganic chemistry looks like.

Computer (CIP) Pool

The computer room provides advanced chemistry students with an internet-connected workplace. We also offer many chemistry-related computer programs such that this room may be used for ("hands-on") exercises, for example molecular dynamics (MD) simulations or electronic-structure (LMTO) calculations and, also, for general-purpose computer courses to train our coworkers. As operating systems, we have commited ourselves to Linux and Windows 2000. Please ask Dr. Eck if you need an account.