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.

Structural dynamics of singlet fission in pentacene single crystals

• PC Online Talk
• Date: Oct 1, 2020
• Time: 11:00 AM (Local Time Germany)
• Speaker: Dr. Hélène Seiler
• FHI Department PC

Singlet fission in organic molecular semiconductors has attracted significant attention for its relevance in opto-electronic applications. It is known that molecular packing strongly impacts singlet fission properties, and the structural dynamics are thought to play an essential role as well. Yet to this day, a direct probe of the molecular motions involved in the singlet fission process has been lacking. Here we directly observe the structural dynamics accompanying the singlet fission process in single crystal pentacene using femtosecond electron diffraction. [more]