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
- Eight-band k·p Hamilton matrix for strained tetrahedral semiconductors: 4 × 4 block diagonalization for symmetric k-directions Phys. Stat. Sol. (b) 194 (1996) 585-599
- Vibronic excitations of large molecules in solution studied by two-color pump-probe experiments on the 20 fs time scale J. Chem. Phys. 104 (1996) 5761-5769
- Intersubband scattering and thermalization of elctrons in quantum wells studied with mid-infrared femtosecond pulses Ultrafast Phenomena X Springer Berlin (1996) 395-397
- Femtosecond studies of vibrationally hot molecules produced by intramolecular proton transfer in the excited state Chemical Physics Letters 240 (1995) 35-41
- Generation of 16 fs pulses at 425 nm by extracavity frequency doubling of a mode-locked Ti:sapphire laser Opt. Lett. 20 (1995) 2120-2122
- k • p theory of energy bands, wave functions, and optical selection rules in strained tetrahedral semiconductors Phys. Rev. B 51 (1995) 16695-16704
- Vibrational and vibronic dynamics of large molecules in solution studied on a 20 fs time scale Chemical Physics Letters 244 (1995) 164-170
- Ultrafast hole relaxation in semiconductors Laser Physics 5 (1995) 611-615
- Ultrafast thermalization of nonequilibrium hole plasma in p-type tetrahedral semiconductors Phys. Rev. B 51 (1995) 17490-17498
- Solid-state laser system for the generation of mid-infrared femtosecond pulses tunable from 3.3 to 10 mm Opt. Lett. 19 (1994) 2009-2011