MBI Staff Member – Personal info
Dr. Horst Rottke
horst.rottke(at)mbi-berlin.de
+49 30 6392 1371
B2: Imaging and Coherent X-rays
Building B, 2.10

Position
Project Coordinator 2.2 "Strong-field Few-body Systems"
Research
We are investigating the dynamics of strong field interaction with atoms, molecules and ordered, loosely bound atomic or molecular structures, where the constituents still show their individual characteristics. These loosely bound structures are usually found in the form of small van der Waals clusters, however, also molecules assume this characteristic during dissociation at large internuclear separation. Characteristic of these systems are closely spaced electronic states at a large internuclear separation where the electrons start to localize at the individual constituents.
Besides strong field phenomena we are interested in electron dynamics in the bound part of the atomic spectrum and in the ionization continuum of atoms either in energy ranges structured by Fano resonances or in the unstructured continuum.
The main instruments employed in these investigations are
- laser systems delivering high intensity pulses with pulse widths in the femtosecond range
- a source for generation of high order harmonics of this laser radiation
- a reaction microscope (see the Fig.) capable to determine the momentum of any charged particle emerging from the interaction of the laser pulses with the respective target in a correlated way
Curriculum vitae
10/1975 – 7/1982 Study of Physics, Univ. Bielefeld
Diploma thesis: "Stepwise photoionization of molecules and of atomic hydrogen with mass selective ion detection"
8/1982 – 10/1986 Research assistant, Phys. Dep., Univ. Bielefeld, Prof. Dr. K. H. Welge
PhD thesis: "Laser spectroscopy on highly excited Rydberg states of atomic and molecular hydrogen"
11/1986 – 2/1993 Research fellow, Phys. Dep., Univ. Bielefeld, Prof. Dr. K. H. Welge
7/1991 Habilitation, Univ. Bielefeld
3/1993 – 6/1993 Scientist at the Max-Born-Institute
Since 7/1993 Department head at the Max-Born-Institute
MBI Publications
- Probing electron and hole colocalization by resonant four-wave mixing spectroscopy in the extreme ultraviolet Science Advances 20 (2022) eabn5127/1-20
- Vierwellenmischung im extremen UV Physik in unserer Zeit 53 (2022) 216-217
- Photon-Recoil Imaging: expanding the view of nonlinear x-ray physics Science 369 (2020) 1630-1633
- Proton transfer dynamics following strong-field ionization of the water dimer Physical Review A 99 (2019) 053408/1-8
- Strong-field ionization of xenon dimers: The effect of two-equivalent-center interference and of driving ionic transitions Physical Review A 97 (2018) 023417/1-11
- 43 W, 1.55 μm and 12.5 W, 3.1 μm dual-beam, sub-10 cycle, 100 kHz optical parametric chirped pulse amplifier Optics Letters 43 (2018) 5246-5249
- Real-time tracking of two-electron dynamics in the ionization continuum of Xe Physical Review A 91 (2015) 053403/1-9
- Phase differences in the photoemission from krypton in the fine-structure-split ionization channels 2P3/2 and 2P1/2 Physical Review A 92 (2015) 013424/1-6
- Imaging the impulsive alignment of noble-gas dimers via Coulomb explosion Physical Review A 89 (2014) 023432/1-12
- Frustrated tunnel ionization of noble gas dimers with Rydberg-electron shakeoff by electron charge oscillation Physical Review Letters 110 (2013) 023001/1-5