MBI Staff Member – Personal info
Dr. Michael Woerner
michael.woerner(at)mbi-berlin.de
+49 30 6392 1470
C3: Femtosecond Spectroscopy of Solids
Building C, 1.2
Position
- Head of Department C3 "Femtosecond Spectroscopy on Solids"
- Coordinator of Project 3.2 "Solids and Nanostructures: Electrons, Spins, and Phonons"
- Coordinator of Project 3.3 "Transient Structures and Imaging with X-rays"
Research
I am interested in ultrafast and nonlinear phenomena in condensed matter, in particular organic and inorganic solids and nanostructures. To this end, I generate and apply ultrashort pulses in a wide spectral range (THz to hard x-ray) to measure the nonequilibrium dynamics of elementary excitations in solids and the ultrafast structural dynamics of crystalline material. Most recent activities are two-dimensional spectroscopy in the THz frequency range (Figure: two phonon coherences in InSb) and femtosecond x-ray absorption experiments using table top high harmonic sources.
Curriculum vitae
1981-1988 Study of physics at the Technical University (TU) of Munich
1988-1991 PhD Work at TU Munich, Physics Department E11 (Prof. W. Kaiser)
1991 Graduation (Dr. rer. nat.) at the TU
1991-1993 Postdoctoral Researcher at the Physics Department E11, TU Munich
1993-1996 Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max-Born-Institute, Berlin
1997 Postdoctoral Researcher at Bell Laboratories (Lucent), Holmdel, NJ, USA
since 1997 Department head of C3 at the Max-Born-Institute, Berlin
1999 Habilitation at the Humboldt University Berlin
Recent highlight(s)
Electric polarization in the macroscopic world and electrons moving at atomic scales
Wiggling atoms switch the electric polarization of crystals
Quantum Swing - a pendulum that moves forward and backwards at the same time
Amplification of Sound Waves at Extreme Frequencies
Hot means slow: Electron plasma oscillations tuned down with light
The longer the better: Optical long-wavelength pulses generate brilliant ultrashort hard x-ray flashes
MBI Publications
- Nonlinear terahertz spectroscopy of semiconductor nanostructures Applied Physics A 78 (2004) 435-440
- Coherent atomic motions in a nanostructure studied by femtosecond x-ray diffraction Science 306 (2004) 1771-1773 (see also perspective by P.H. Bucksbaum 1691-1692)
- Theory of the lineshape of quantum well intersubband transitions: optical dephasing and light propagation effects Physica status solidi (b) 238 (2003) 474-477
- Midinfrared intersubband absorption in strain-compensated InGaP/InGaAs superlattices on (001) GaAs Applied Physics Letters 82 (2003) 3418-3420
- Direct field-resolved detection of terahertz transients with amplitudes of megavolts per centimeter Optics Letters 28 (2003) 471-473
- Second harmonic characteristics of photonic composite glass layers with ZnO nanocrystallites for ultrafast applications SPIE Proceedings 4972 (2003) 112-121
- Ultrafast coherent and incoherent dynamics of intersubband excitations in semiconductor quantum wells SPIE Proceedings 4992 (2003) 154-164
- Ultrafast intersubband dynamics in quantum wells and quantum cascade structures Proceedings of the International School of Physics 'Enrico Fermi': Electron and Photon Confinement in Semiconductor Nanostructures IOS Press (2003) 249-263
- Ultrafast coherent electron transport in quantum cascade structures Ultrafast Phenomena XIII Springer Verlag (2003) 356-358
- Optical deformation-potential scattering of holes in multiple quantum well structures Physical Review B 65 (2002) 045302/1-10