Dr. Ling Zhang awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship

Project “Photoswitchable Covalent Organic Frameworks for Controlled Charge Transport” (June 2026 – May 2028)

With support from a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA PF), Dr. Ling Zhang will establish new design principles for light-responsive covalent organic frameworks, enabling dynamic control of charge transport in crystalline materials.

Dr. Ling Zhang has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA PF) at the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics under the supervision of Prof. Xinliang Feng. Her project, Photoswitchable Covalent Organic Frameworks for Controlled Charge Transport, aims to develop light-responsive two-dimensional (2D) covalent organic frameworks (COFs) whose geometry and electronic properties can be reversibly controlled by light. By integrating molecular photoswitches into flexible crystalline 2D COFs, the project will enable non-invasive and spatiotemporal control over directional charge transport, opening new opportunities for adaptive electronics, sensing, and energy technologies. It will establish design principles for stimuli-responsive frameworks and deepen our understanding of structure–property relationships in dynamic crystalline materials.

Dr. Ling Zhang is a materials chemist with a multidisciplinary background spanning organic and organometallic synthesis, porous framework materials, spectroscopy, and computational chemistry. She received her PhD from the Australian National University in 2022. She subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at Westlake University and Tsinghua University, before joining Technische Universität Dresden and the Max Planck Institute of Microstructure Physics as an MSCA Postdoctoral Fellow, where she continues her research on advanced functional materials.