Dahlem Van't-Hoff-Straße Fritz-Haber-Institut-1

The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (FHI) is a science research institute located at the heart of the academic district of Dahlem, in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The original Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, founded in 1911, was incorporated into the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...

and simultaneously renamed for its first director,

Fritz Haber Fritz Haber (; 9 December 186829 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen ...

, in 1953. The research topics covered throughout the history of the institute include

chemical kinetics Chemical kinetics, also known as reaction kinetics, is the branch of physical chemistry that is concerned with understanding the rates of chemical reactions. It is to be contrasted with chemical thermodynamics, which deals with the direction in wh ...

and

reaction dynamics Reaction dynamics is a field within physical chemistry, studying why chemical reactions occur, how to predict their behavior, and how to control them. It is closely related to chemical kinetics, but is concerned with individual chemical events on ...

colloid chemistry A colloid is a mixture in which one substance consisting of microscopically dispersed insoluble particles is suspended throughout another substance. Some definitions specify that the particles must be dispersed in a liquid, while others extend ...

atomic physics Atomic physics is the field of physics that studies atoms as an isolated system of electrons and an atomic nucleus. Atomic physics typically refers to the study of atomic structure and the interaction between atoms. It is primarily concerned wit ...

spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...

surface chemistry Surface science is the study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid–liquid interfaces, solid–gas interfaces, solid–vacuum interfaces, and liquid–gas interfaces. It includes the fiel ...

and

surface physics Surface science is the study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid– liquid interfaces, solid–gas interfaces, solid–vacuum interfaces, and liquid–gas interfaces. It includes the f ...

chemical physics Chemical physics is a subdiscipline of chemistry and physics that investigates physicochemical phenomena using techniques from atomic and molecular physics and condensed matter physics; it is the branch of physics that studies chemical process ...

and

molecular physics Molecular physics is the study of the physical properties of molecules and molecular dynamics. The field overlaps significantly with physical chemistry, chemical physics, and quantum chemistry. It is often considered as a sub-field of atomic, mo ...

theoretical chemistry Theoretical chemistry is the branch of chemistry which develops theoretical generalizations that are part of the theoretical arsenal of modern chemistry: for example, the concepts of chemical bonding, chemical reaction, valence, the surface o ...

, and materials science. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, the research of the institute was directed towards Germany's military needs. To the illustrious past members of the Institute belong

Herbert Freundlich Herbert Max Finlay Freundlich (28 January 1880 in Charlottenburg – 30 March 1941 in Minneapolis) was a German chemist. His father was of German Jewish descent, and his mother ( Finlay) was from Scotland. His younger brother was Erwin Fi ...

James Franck James Franck (; 26 August 1882 – 21 May 1964) was a German physicist who won the 1925 Nobel Prize for Physics with Gustav Hertz "for their discovery of the laws governing the impact of an electron upon an atom". He completed his doctorate in ...

, Paul Friedlander,

Rudolf Ladenburg Rudolf Walter Ladenburg (June 6, 1882 in Kiel – April 6, 1952 in Princeton, New Jersey) was a German atomic physicist. He emigrated from Germany as early as 1932 and became a Brackett Research Professor at Princeton University. When the wave of G ...

Michael Polanyi Michael Polanyi (; hu, Polányi Mihály; 11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976) was a Hungarian-British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. He argued that positivism supplies ...

Eugene Wigner Eugene Paul "E. P." Wigner ( hu, Wigner Jenő Pál, ; November 17, 1902 – January 1, 1995) was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist who also contributed to mathematical physics. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 "for his con ...

Ladislaus Farkas Ladislaus Farkas (Hungarian: Farkas László, Hebrew: לדיסלאוס פרקש) (May 10, 1904, in Dunajská Streda, Austria-Hungary – December 31, 1948, in Monte Argentario, Italy) is an Israeli chemist, of Austro-Hungarian origin, was the found ...

Hartmut Kallmann Harmut Kallmann (5 February 1896 – 11 June 1978) was a German physicist. He is known for his work on the scintillation counter for the detection of gamma rays. Biography - Career Kallmann was born in Berlin in a Jewish family. He studied ...

Otto Hahn Otto Hahn (; 8 March 1879 – 28 July 1968) was a German chemist who was a pioneer in the fields of radioactivity and radiochemistry. He is referred to as the father of nuclear chemistry and father of nuclear fission. Hahn and Lise Meitner ...

Robert Havemann Robert Havemann (; 11 March 1910 – 9 April 1982) was an East German chemist and dissident. Life and career He studied chemistry in Berlin and Munich from 1929 to 1933, and then later received a doctorate in physical chemistry from the Kaiser ...

Karl Friedrich Bonhoeffer Karl-Friedrich Bonhoeffer (13 January 1899 – 15 May 1957) was a German chemist. Education and career Born in Breslau, he was an older brother of martyred theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. His father was neurologist Karl Bonhoeffer and his moth ...

Iwan N. Stranski Ivan Nikolov Stranski ( bg, Иван Николов Странски; german: Iwan Nikolow Stranski; 2 January 1897 – 19 June 1979) was a Bulgarian physical chemist who is considered the father of crystal growth research. He was the founder o ...

Ernst Ruska Ernst August Friedrich Ruska (; 25 December 1906 – 27 May 1988) was a German physicist who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1986 for his work in electron optics, including the design of the first electron microscope. Life and career Erns ...

Max von Laue Max Theodor Felix von Laue (; 9 October 1879 – 24 April 1960) was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals. In addition to his scientific endeavors with cont ...

Gerhard Borrmann Gerhard Borrmann (30 April 1908 – 12 April 2006) was a German physicist. He was born in Diedenhofen, then part of Germany, and received his early education there. He continued his secondary school at Gießen, where he apprenticed at a steel ...

Rudolf Brill Rudolf Brill (September 7, 1899 in Eschwege – February 17, 1989 in Lenggries) was a German chemist. Education and career Rudolf Friedrich Heinrich Erhard Ernst Brill was born in Eschwege in 1899 as the son of a businessman. From 1918 to 1922, ...

, Kurt Moliere,

Jochen Block Jochen is a given name. Notable people with the name include: *Jochen Asche, East German luger, competed during the 1960s *Jochen Böhler (born 1969), German historian, specializing in the history of World War II *Jochen Babock (born 1953), East G ...

Heinz Gerischer Heinz Gerischer (31 March 1919 – 14 September 1994) was a German scientist. He was the thesis advisor of future Nobel laureate Gerhard Ertl. The ''Heinz Gerischer Award'' of the European section of The Electrochemical Society is named in his h ...

, , Kurt Ueberreiter,

Alexander Bradshaw Alexander Marian Bradshaw (born 12 July 1944 Bushey) is a British physicist. He was scientific director of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, from 1999 to 2008. He earned a PhD from University of London in 1969, and habilitation from ...

, Elmar Zeitler, and

Gerhard Ertl Gerhard Ertl (; born 10 October 1936) is a German physicist and a Professor emeritus at the Department of Physical Chemistry, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft in Berlin, Germany. Ertl's research laid the foundation of modern su ...

. Nobel Prize laureates affiliated with the institute include

(1914),

(1918),

(1925),

(1944),

(1963),

(1986),

(2007).

Structure

There are five departments with a number of research groups within:

Current department

*Inorganic Chemistry (

Robert Schlögl Robert Schlögl (born 23 February 1954 in Munich) is a German chemist known for research in catalysis. Currently, he is the Director and Scientific Member of the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society in Berlin and the Max Planck Institut ...

) **Reactivity (Annette Trunschke) **Electronic Structure (Axel Knop-Gericke) **Liquid/vapor Interfaces (Hendrik Bluhm) **Electron Microscopy (Thomas Lunkenbein) *Interface Science ( Beatriz Roldan Cuenya) **Liquid Phase Electron Microscopy (Wee Chee) **Scanning Probe Microscopy (Markus Heyde) **Photo-Electrochemical Scanning Probe Microscopy (Christopher Kley) **Thin Films (Helmut Kuhlenbeck) **Structure and Reactivity (Shamil Shaikhutdinov) **Spectro-Microscopy (Thomas Schmidt) **Operando Hard X-ray Spectroscopy (Janis Timoshenko) *Molecular Physics ( Gerard Meijer) **Controlled Molecules (Sandra Eibenberger-Arias) **Spectroscopy and chemistry of metal clusters and cluster complexes (André Fielicke) **Interactions of molecules with fields (

Bretislav Friedrich Bretislav Friedrich (born 29 May 1953) is a ''Research Group leader'' at the Department of Molecular Physics, Fritz Haber Institute of the MPG, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft and Honorarprofessor at the Technische Universität ...

) **Infrared excitation of gas-phase molecules and clusters (Gert von Helden) **Cold and ultracold molecules (Stefan Truppe) **Liquid microjets (Bernd Winter) *Physical Chemistry (

Martin Wolf Martin Harry Wolf (born 16 August 1946 in London) is a British journalist of Austrian-Dutch descent who focuses on economics. He is the associate editor and chief economics commentator at the ''Financial Times''. Early life Wolf was born in ...

) **Nanoscale Surface Chemistry (Takashi Kumagai) **Ultrafast Scanning Probe Microscopy (Melanie Müller) **Lattice Dynamics (Alex Paarmann) **Nonlinear Interfacial Spectroscopy Group (Martin Thämer) **Structural & Electronic Surface Dynamics (Ralph Ernstorfer) **Terahertz Physics (Tobias Kampfrath) **Electron Dynamiχ (A. Julia Stähler) *Theory ( Karsten Reuter) **Data-Efficient Chemical Machine Learning (Johannes Margraf) **Multiscale Modeling from Electrons to the Reactor (Sebastian Matera) **First-principles modeling of solid-liquid interfaces and electrocatalysis (Nicolas Hörmann) **Understanding of functional solid-solid interfaces at the atomistic level (Christoph Scheurer) **Interatomic machine learning potentials for energy materials (Hendrik Heenen) **Selectivity in catalysis (Vanessa Jane Bukas)

Former department

*Theory (

Matthias Scheffler Matthias Scheffler (born June 25, 1951, in Berlin) is a German theoretical physicist whose research focuses on Condensed matter physics, condensed matter theory, materials science, and artificial intelligence. He is particularly known for his con ...

) **Unifying Concepts in Catalysis (Sergey Levchenko) **Heat and Charge Transport (Christian Carbogno) **Ab Initio Biomolecular Simulations (Carsten Baldauf) **Simulations from Ab Initio Approaches: Structure and Dynamics from Quantum Mechanics (Mariana Rossi) **Big-Data Analytics for Materials Science (Luca M. Ghiringhelli) **Crystal-Structure Prediction and Heterogeneous Catalysis (

) **Max Planck Fellow Group ( Claudia Draxl) **Max Planck Partner Group for Advanced Electronic-Structure Methods (Xinguo Ren)

References

External links

Fritz Haber Institute The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society (FHI) is a science research institute located at the heart of the academic district of Dahlem, in Berlin, Germany. The original Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochem ...

Chemical research institutes Buildings and structures in Steglitz-Zehlendorf Fritz Haber {{Berlin-struct-stub