​Ricarda Schmidt's research focuses on rheological and microscopic characterization of mechanofluorescent hydrogels.
With opto-rheological measurements the mechanistic details of fracture and defect propagation in mechanofluorescent hydrogel materials can be studied. The hydrogels are DNA-based and form a highly-defined, self organising network. Introducing fluorophors and quencher into the network provides the possibility to analyse the system under stress, e.g. detect the fracture force, the defect propagation and the reorganisation time.
Ricarda is a visiting research student from the University of Freiburg, Germany. She is doing her master studies in chemistry with the focus on macromolecular chemistry.