Planar Carbon Lattices

The winners of the RTG-PCL Hobby Project Competition

The research proposal project competition of RTG2861-PCL was unveiled during this year's GSMS winter school in Kirchberg. Since the RTG2861 Summer School, students collaborated in interdisciplinary groups to develop innovative proposals aligned with the DFG guidelines for a 3-year PhD project, to be presented within a 20-minute timeframe. The victorious team for this year comprises of Jannis Kockläuner (AK Golze, TUD), Shreya Garg (AK Maier, FAU), Elena Mack (AK Guldi, FAU), Aleena Jose (AK Kaskel, TUD), and Britta Maib (AK Maultzsch, FAU) who spearheaded the project titled "Let’s Save The Potatoes!" or "Deep Learning Strategies for Raman Spectroscopy based Plant Disease Detection".

The proposal centers on bridging the current gap between recent developments in the application of Raman techniques for analytical purposes and deep learning techniques. By building a Raman spectra database specifically dedicated to the flagship application of plant disease detection, the project aims to act as a bridge between two previously disconnected fields of research.

While various image databases, such as the Plant Village Dataset, have been combined with deep learning for symptomatic plant disease detection, Raman spectroscopy offers a promising alternative especially with focus on early detection during the asymptomatic stage. The ultimate objective is to demonstrate the applicability of anomaly detection techniques, introducing a new paradigm for the automated analysis of spectra which is solely based on healthy samples.

The winning team, composed of students with diverse backgrounds in Physical Chemistry, Theoretical Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, and Experimental Physics, underscores the collaborative ethos of RTG2861-PCL, promoting interdisciplinary engagements. Well done!