Welcome to the Voskuhl group.....

The Voskuhl Group

The Voskuhl group, established in autumn 2015 at the University of Duisburg-Essen, is interested in luminescence phenomena. The research focus, in this regards, lays on the investigation of novel emitters for materials science as well as biomedical imaging. Here the influence of aggregation phenomena on the photophysical properties plays a crucial role and is investigated in detail. To this end, the research of the Voskuhl group can be regarded as interdisciplinary, working between different disciplines such as organic chemistry, physics, medicine, biology as well as materials science.

Topics for PhD theses

Currently there are no open PhD positions available. If you qualify for external funding via a scholarship, please contact Prof. Dr.  Jens Voskuhl.

Potential topics for bachelor (BA) and master (MA) theses

If you are interested in doing a bachelor's or master's thesis in our group, don't hesitate to get in touch with Jens Voskuhl.

Postdoctoral positions

Currently there are no open PostDoc positions available. If you qualify for external funding via a scholarship (e.g. Humboldt, Marie Curie…), please contact Jens Voskuhl.

News

10th March 2026 New Master Student

Viki rejoined our group to pursue her master's project on novel luminescent rhenium complexes. Welcome and good luck!

10th March 2026 SupraChem 2026

The Voskuhl group visited the SupraChem 2026 in Dortmund. We had great scientific discussions and a lot of fun. In addition, we are happy that Lea won one of the poster prizes with her contribution about novel selenium-based emitters. Congrats!

3rd February 2026 100th Publication

Alex and Tobi published their shared work on luminescent arylazopyrazoles, which were embedded in liquid crystalline systems and used in additive manufacturing, in ACS Appl. Opt. Mater.. This is publication number 100 from the Voskuhl group. Congrats to everyone!

15th January 2026 PhD finished

Marco completed his PhD and is now the 10th PhD to graduate from our group. His thesis was about novel photocyclization to obtain emissive dibenzothiophenes. Well done and all the best for the future!

1st January 2026 New Postdoc

We are happy that Silpa joined our group as a postdocroral research fellow. She will work on novel emissive rhenium complexes and triptycene-based emitters. Good luck Silpa!

18th December 2025 Christmas Party 2025

As the last official part of the year, we, the groups Voskuhl, Giese and Hirschhäuser, celebrated our annual Christmas party. It was a successful year and a great party. Thanks to everyone for your never ending support and your hard work!

16th December 2025 New Publication

© 2025 The Authors. ChemPhotoChem

Alex publication about substituted phenoxazines was accepted in ChemPhotoChem. Here he was able to show that variations of functional groups attached to a phenyl-rotor are able to influence the favored state of emission - Congrats to everyone involved!

Link to Publication

16th December 2025 New Publication

© 2025 The Authors. Organic Chemistry Frontiers

Another publication of Alex was just published in Org. Chem. Front.. Here he investigated the influence of sequential methylation of phenoxazines to modulate their photophysical performance - Well done.

Link to Publication

31th October 2025 New Bachelor's Student

We are happy, that Johanna is joining our group to write her bachelor thesis. Her topic will be about new emissive carbazole-dibenzochalcogenophene conjugates - Good luck

27th October 2025 New Publication

© 2025 The Authors. Chemical Communications

Marco, Sid and Rick published their shared work on novel dibenzochalcogenophenes in Chemical Communications. In this study they were able to show not only, that these compounds have impressive photophysical properties, but also their ability to produce singlet oxygen. Congrat everyone.

Link to Publication