Gustav Gerber (physicist)
Gustav Gerber (born June 22, 1942 ; † September 16, 2018 ) was Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Würzburg . There he was dean of the department of physics and astronomy.
Gerber studied physics from 1964 until his diploma in 1970 at the Free University of Berlin and the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg , where he received his doctorate in 1974 with a thesis on ionization processes in the slow collision of heavy particles . As a post-doctoral student, he was at the University of California, Santa Barbara from 1974 to 1976 . After returning he was a research assistant in Freiburg at Osberghaus, where he completed his habilitation in 1982. After holding substitute professorships in Freiburg from 1984 to 1986 and at the University of Kaiserslautern from 1986 to 1988 , he became associate professor in 1988. In 1990/91 he was visiting scientist at the University of Colorado in Boulder and at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics . In 1994 he became professor for experimental physics at the University of Würzburg. In 1998 he was Miller Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley .
He was one of the first in Germany and Europe to do femtosecond spectroscopy with molecules and clusters. He combined femtoseconds with molecular beam techniques and time-of-flight spectrometers and developed the necessary femtosecond sources (typically 70 fs pulse duration) around 1987 with his group himself. This enabled time-resolved investigation of the dynamics of excitation, ionization, and fragmentation of molecules and clusters.
Gerber and others achieved a scientific breakthrough in 1998 with their development of a method for controlling chemical reactions (initially a dissociation reaction ) with laser pulses in the femtosecond range. The pulses are adapted to the desired reaction yield using “evolutionary algorithms”, so that no detailed initial information about the chemical reaction is required. He was the spokesman and initiator of the DFG priority program "Femtosecond Spectroscopy of Elementary Excitations of Atoms, Molecules and Clusters".
In 1994 he was a Robert Wichard Pohl Prize winner . In 2000, he and Thomas Baumert and Volker Seyfried received the Philip Morris Research Prize for the control of chemical reactions using femtosecond laser pulses.
Fonts
- Molecular design with adaptive femtosecond lasers , in Müller-Krumbhaar, Wagner (editor) And he throws the dice , Wiley / VCH 2001
Web links
- Philip Morris Research Award to Gerber
- Uni protocols on Gerber's work on controlling chemical reactions
Individual evidence
- ^ Gustav Gerber obituary notice. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . Süddeutscher Verlag , September 19, 2018, accessed on October 1, 2018 .
- ^ Miller professorships in Berkeley
- ↑ Gerber et al. a. "Control of Chemical Reactions by Feedback-Optimized Phase-Shaped Femtosecond Laser Pulses", Science, Vol. 282, 1998, p. 919
- ↑ Acknowledgment on this in Physikalische Blätter, Volume 50, 1993, No. 3, p. 261
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Gerber, Gustav |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German physicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 22, 1942 |
| DATE OF DEATH | 16th September 2018 |