Physical Organic Chemistry: Reactive Intermediates, Reaction Mechanisms. Organic Main Group Chemistry with emphasis on Organosilicon Chemistry: Reactive intermediates (carbenes and analogues, cations, radicals), multiple bonded systems, aromaticity, magnetic properties of organic main group compounds. Computational Chemistry: Application of density functional and ab initio methods to medium to large sized systems. Calculation of reaction surfaces and spectroscopic properties. Synthetic Chemistry: Application of unusual organo element compounds in catalysis and in material design. NMR Spectroscopy: Heteronuclear NMR, Dynamik NMR.

We combine in our group experiment with theory. Computational chemistry is used as an independent tool to guide experiments and to learn more about structure, stability and bonding situation of molecules. Much of our experimental work is conducted in order to test the hypothesis borne out from the calculations. Fortunately, a successful experiment always poses new questions for theory!