Gerhard Ertl Lecture & Award

Gerhard Ertl Lecture & Award

The Ertl Lecture Award was established in 2008 by the three Berlin universities (Humboldt University, Technical University and Free University) and the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society and is awarded once a year. It commemorates former FHI Director Gerhard Ertl's Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he received in 2007. The prize honours outstanding personalities and researchers in the field of catalysis where Ertl carried out exceptional research for many decades. The prize, sponsored by BASF, includes a one-week research stay at the participating Berlin institutions and a keynote lecture. The winner is typically announced in Spring, the lecture takes place around the December 10th, the anniversary of Ertl's Nobel Prize reception.

Location: Online Seminar

How to publish your science: A guide to writing your first re-search article, and every article after that

Scientific writing is an integral part of any researcher’s career, aimed at communicating original research for peer review. Well written articles backed by citable scientific data help expedite peer collaboration and advancements in any field. [more]

Controlling the uncontrollable: Quantum control of open systems

Quantum control addresses the issue of driving a system to a desired objective. Manipulation of quantum systems is achieved by coherent control which relies on constructive and destructive interference of the quantum amplitudes, i.e., quantum coherence. The key ingredient, coherence, is extremely sensitive to any external perturbation. In reality all quantum systems are open, thus, are subject to environmental effects. The interaction with the environment degrades the required agent, coherence, leading to a detrimental effect on coherent control. Quantum control of an open system is therefore a challenge. For this study we employ a thermodynamically consistent master equation. In this framework, the open system dynamics depend on the control protocol due to the dressing of the system by the drive. This interrelation serves as the key element for control. The influence of the external drive is incorporated within the dynamical equation, enabling an indirect control of the dissipation. The control paradigm is displayed by analyzing entropy changing state to state transformations, heating and cooling N-levels systems, accelerating the approach to equilibrium. Following, we study the generation of quantum non-unitary maps via coherent control. These include both reset maps with complete memory loss. The other extreme where the control is optimized to minimize the dissipation is demonstrated by a single and two qubit unitary maps. [more]

Fritz Session: The Future of Articial Intelligence

Fritz Session: The Future of Articial Intelligence
  • Date: Sep 16, 2021
  • Time: 03:30 PM - 05:00 PM (Local Time Germany)
  • Speaker: Prof. Dr. Kate Crawford
  • Prof. Kate Crawford is a Research Professor of Communication and Science and Technology Studies at USC Annenberg, a Senior principal Researcher at Microsoft Research New York, and an Honorary professor at the University of Sydney. Her latest book is the "Atlas of Artificial Intelligence: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence".
  • Location: Online Seminar
  • Host: Fritz Haber Institute
Increasingly sophisticated machine learning systems are being developed and deployed around the world, enabling scientific breakthroughs and pervasive surveillance, creating new forms of artistic expression and screening jobseekers. As thes systems become embedded into our lives and shape our future, they also become entangled with existing socio-economic structures. Any understanding of what lies ahead must therefore include not only the technical, but also the political. [more]

Ultrafast Structural Dynamics of Elementary Water-Mediated Proton Transfer Processes

Proton transport between acids and bases in aqueous solution involves the exchange of protons, rearrangements of hydrogen bonds, and the changes in electron charge distributions of all molecules involved. Progress in the development of ultrafast structurally resolving techniques have enabled to follow in real-time the elementary individual steps in proton transfer that occur on femto- to picosecond time scales. Ultrafast probing in the mid-infrared has provided a wealth of information on hydrogen bond dynamics and proton transfer time scales. Recent progress in soft X-ray spectroscopy of solution phase acids and bases using novel flatjet technology has now made possible to locally probe electronic structure. I will showcase this with examples on proton hydration, and photoacid molecular systems, and indicate how further advances in ultrafast soft X-ray spectroscopy of solution phase proton transfer may be made. [more]
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