Werner Urland

Following the retirement in 2007 from Hannover professorship, Werner Urland resumed the scientific activity as guest senior researcher in the group of Professor Claude Daul at University of Fribourg (Switzerland), where he proposed a topic related to the so-called "Warm-White Light", namely the improvement of blue-type Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) towards the better resemblance to the sunlight spectrum by coating with appropriate phosphors based on lanthanide doped materials. The topic represents a hot relevance in the context of the trends of eliminating traditional incandescent light bulbs, for the sake of energy saving new technologies . This technological challenge is underlined by the award of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes, which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources" to Shuji Nakamura, Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano and by the declaration of 2015 as International Year of Light and Light-based Technologies, (IYL 2015). Hybridizing Werner's Urland expertise in experimental and theoretical aspects of rare earth materials with a computation and analysis methodology due to C. Daul and M. Atanasov, altogether with methodological knowledge of external collaborators of the group, a series of works was produced, dealing with the analysis and prediction form first principles of the key factors in the luminescence of relevant lanthanide ions in various environments. The modelling is based on a set of algorithmic steps abbreviated as LFDFT, consisting in non-routine calculations in the frame of Density Functional Theory (DFT) followed by the analysis in the frame of Ligand Field Theory. The issue of first principles calculations on rare-earth systems is non-trivial, because of special features of the f-shell, such as the shielded and weakly interacting nature, that poses technical and conceptual difficulties, in relation to modern methods of quantum chemistry. The specific problem of the modelling the luminescence of rare-earth systems called the need of extending the ligand field phenomenology, from its one-shell status (dedicated to d or f electrons) to a two-shell Hamiltonian (quantum mechanics), comprising simultaneously the d and f shells, because the involved optical transitions have inter-shell nature. Also recently, Werner Urland, entered the terrain of actinide chemistry, explaining intriguing magnetic behaviour due strong ligand field on uranium(IV) ions in thiophosphates and silicates. The whole deal underlines the validity and renewed value of Werner Urland's early ideas about the theoretical and practical aspects emerging from the chemistry and physics of f-elements.

Between 1982 and 1986 he occupied a research position at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart. Since 1986 he has been appointed professor in Hanover, where he acted till his retirement in 2007, on a chair dedicated to special topics of inorganic chemistry. In 1996 he declined an invitation to occupy a position as professor of inorganic chemistry at the University of Vienna. Since 2011, Werner Urland occupies a senior researcher position on grants, in the group of theoretical and computational chemistry of Professor Claude Daul, at University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Presently, Werner Urland is dealing with setting up an institute in Muralto/Locarno, Switzerland, with the help of the "Fondazione Sciaroni", dedicated to theoretical approach of material sciences and property design, thus supporting experimental work by universities and industries.

Werner Urland (born 13 April 1944) is a German chemist whose name is imprinted in the pioneering implementation of the Angular Overlap Model (AOM: a specific paradigm for accounting metal ions in complexes or crystals ) for the interpretation of optical and magnetic properties of rare-earth coordination compounds. This approach receives a renewed value in the context of the vogue around the lanthanide-based new materials, such as achieving magnets at molecular scale, or designing new phosphor materials.

Werner Urland was born in Berlin on 13 April 1944. Between 1963 and 1968 he studied and graduated in chemistry in Giessen, Germany. The interval 1968-1971 was dedicated to the work of a doctoral thesis, under the supervision of Professor R. Hoppe, on ternary oxides of noble metals. The PhD stage incorporated a scholarship at University College in London, in the group of Dr. Malcolm Gerloch under the supervision of Professor Lord Jack Lewis (Jack Lewis, Baron Lewis of Newnham, where the acquaintance with the magnetic properties and specific models of coordination compounds had defined a turning point in his career. The following post-doctoral stage (1971-1974) in preparative solid-state chemistry and the return to England, at Cambridge, in the theory group directed by Prof. A. D. Buckingham, contoured an original composition of scientific interests, at the confluence of applied chemistry with the theoretical insight, aiming for understanding and predicting useful properties. Assimilating the different formation sources, Werner Urland contoured his original perspective in the magnetochemistry of rare earth compounds, the domain delineated by his habilitation treatise (1975-1980).