Dr. Hermann A. Dürr
Head of the department Magnetic Dynamics at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie
Hermann Dürr was born in 1961 in Winterhausen (Germany). He studied physics at the University of Würzburg and the State University of New York at Albany, USA (MSc. 1984, Diploma 1986). In 1990 he obtained his PhD from the University of Bayreuth for work performed at the Max-Planck-Institut for Plasmaphysics at Garching.
After postdoctoral stays at Manchester University, UK and as a Feodor-Lynen Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, USA, he became staff member at the Daresbury Laboratory, UK, in 1994.
He returned to Germany in 1999 as staff scientist at the Research Center Jülich before joining BESSY in 2001 as a group leader responsible for experimental systems and magnetic nanostructure research. Since 2009 he is head of the department Magnetic Dynamics at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie.
In 2003 he was awarded the Röntgen Award of the Justus-Liebig-University Gießen for his work on ultrathin magnetic layers.
Current research topics
More than 100 refereed publications demonstrate Hermann A. Dürr’s research interests which aim at a microscopic understanding of the functional properties of materials characterized by a complex interplay of electronic, spin and atomic degrees of freedom. The coupling between elementary excitations in solids, at surfaces and in nanostructures is addressed by studies in the frequency domain, e.g. using ultra high resolution angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy and in the temporal domain, e.g. using femtosecond x-ray pulses from the BESSY II femto-slicing source. This leads to the unique and fascinating prospect of the real-time observation of energy and angular momentum transfer between spin and lattice degrees of freedom following femtosecond laser excitation (see figure).
Following his pioneering study of spin and orbital magnetic properties in self-assembled cluster ensembles, he now employs improved spectromicroscopy instrumentation to probe individual nanostructures with the goal of establishing the ultimate switching speed for magnetic data storage devices.
Contact: Dr. Hermann A. Dürr, e-mail: Hermann.duerr(at)helmholtz-berlin.de, tel.: +49-(0)30/6392-3443, www.helmholtz-berlin.de