Göttinger Graduiertenzentrum für Neurowissenschaften, Biophysik und Molekulare Biowissenschaften

Wodtke, Alec M., Prof., Ph.D.


  • 1981 Bachelor of Arts, Major in Chemistry, University of Utah
  • 1986 Doctor of Philosophy in Physical Chemistry, University of California Berkeley
  • 1981-1986 Graduate Student Researcher, U.C. Berkeley
  • 1986-1988 Guest Scientist, Max Planck Institute for Fluid Dynamics, Göttingen, Germany
  • 1991 Guest Scientist, Dept. of Physics, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany
  • 1988-1993 Asst. Professor, Dept. of Chemistry UC Santa Barbara
  • 1993 Visiting Scientist, Catholic University of Nejmegen, the Netherlands
  • 1993-1996 Associate Professor with Tenure, Dept. of Chemistry, UC Santa Barbara
  • 1996-2010 Full Professor, Dept. of Chemistry, UC Santa Barbara
  • 2003-2009 Chairman, Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UC Santa Barbara
  • 2004-2007 Associate Director of the Institute for Quantum and Complex Dynamics
  • 2005 Director, Partnership for International Research and Education – Electro Chemistry and Catalysis at Interfaces
  • 2010 Professor Above-Scale, Dept. of Chemistry and Biochemistry, UC Santa Barbara
  • 2010 Professor, Institute for Physical Chemistry, Georg-August University Göttingen, Germany
  • 2010 Director and Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, Max Planck Institute for biophysical Chemistry, Göttingen, Germany
  • 2015 Professeur Titulaire, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale Lausanne, Lausanne Switzerland




Major Research Interests

An important aspect of future research is based on advancing understanding in problems related to electronically nonadiabatic energy transfer at surfaces. Electronically non-adiabatic effects refer to Born-Oppenheimer approximation (BOA) breakdown where energy can be converted back and forth between nuclear and electronic motion. While electronically nonadiabatic interactions have been observed in other physical contexts – for example gas-phase and liquid-phase energy transfer – for molecular interactions at surfaces; they appear to be of central importance. For example, observations of electron emission from low work function surfaces resulting from collisions of highly vibrationally excited molecules give direct evidence of the conversion of internal (vibrational) energy of a molecule. Such behavior is of significant interest to energy conversion research as it represents an entirely new field of inquiry into how elementary atomic scale energy conversion processes take place, where chemical and electrical energy are intrinsically interrelated. The theoretical basis for the first-principles understanding of this class of phenomenology is still in its infancy. Thus, new experiments motivate new theoretical developments and vice versa. Furthermore, as our understanding of such elementary energy conversion processes improves, we may predict behavior and attempt to exploit our new knowledge to create conditions for unexpected new kinds of energy conversion.


Homepage Department/Research Group

https://www.mpinat.mpg.de/de/wodtke

http://www.uni-goettingen.de/de/211983.html



Selected Recent Publications


  • Rahinov I, Kandratsenka A, Schäfer T, Shirhatti PR, Golibrzuch K, Wodtke AM (2024) Vibrational Energy Transfer in Collisions of Molecules with Metal Surfaces. Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics
  • Krüger K, Hertl N, Wodtke AM, Bünermann O (2024) Temperature dependence of the Ge(111) surface electronic structure probed by inelastic H atom scattering. Physical Review Materials 8:3, 034603
  • Fingerhut J, Lecroart L, Schwarzer M, Hörandl S, Borodin D, Kandratsenka A, Wodtke AM, Auerbach DJ, Kitsopoulos TN (2024) Identification of reaction intermediates in the decomposition of formic acid on Pd. Faraday Discussions
  • Shi L, Schröder M, Meyer HD, Peláez D, Wodtke AM, Golibrzuch K, Schönemann AM, Kandratsenka A, Gatti F (2023) Quantum and classical molecular dynamics for H atom scattering from graphene. The Journal of Chemical Physics 159:194102
  • Choudhury A, Sinha S, Harlander D, DeVine J, Kandratsenka A, Saalfrank P, Schwarzer D, Wodtke AM (2023) Manipulating tunnelling gateways in condensed phase isomerization. Natural Sciences 3:3, e20230006