Jonas Warneke has rapidly succeeded in realising his vision of a new interdisciplinary research field as a result of his great determination and extraordinary creativity: the material synthesis he has developed using molecular fragment ions – charged molecular fragments generated in a mass spectrometer – has the potential to bridge the wide gap between gas phase ion chemistry and synthetic chemistry. In particular, this revolutionises the way in which materials with customised properties can be created. During his time as a postdoctoral researcher in the US, Warneke significantly developed the ion soft landing method, which laid the foundations for his discoveries regarding self-organising layers. At the same time, Warneke developed fundamental concepts on the chemistry of the so-called super-electrophilic anions.