Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Berlin 13th Meeting of the Fachbeirat Berlin, 13th - 15th November 2005 Reports Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft Berlin 13th Meeting of the Fachbeirat Berlin, 13th – 15th November 2005 Reports Members of the Fachbeirat Prof. Dr. Charles T. Campbell Department of Chemistry University of Washington Box 351700 Seattle, Washington 98195-1700 USA Prof. Dr. Roberto Car Department of Chemistry 213 Frick Lab. Princeton University Princeton, New Jersey 08544-1009 USA Prof. Dr. Franz Himpsel Department of Physics University of Wisconsin Madison 1150 University Avenue Madison, WI 53706-1390 USA Prof. Dr. Wilson Ho Department of Physics and Astronomy and Department of Chemistry Frederick Reines Hall University of California, Irvine 1150 University Avenue Irvine, CA 92697-4575 USA Prof. Dr. John L. Hudson Department of Chemical Engineering University of Virginia 102 Engineers’ Way, P.O. Box 400741 Charlotteville, VA 22904-4741 USA Prof. Dr. Graham J. Hutchings Department of Chemistry Cardiff University Box 912 Cardiff CF10 3TB, Wales UK Prof. Dr. Enrique Iglesia Department of Chemical Engineering University of California at Berkeley 201 Gilman Hall Berkeley, CA 94720 USA Prof. Dr. Bengt Kasemo Department of Applied Physics Chalmers University of Technology Fysikgården 4 S-412 96 Göteborg Sweden Prof. Dr. Hans Lüth Institut für Schichten und Grenzflächen (ISG1) Forschungszentrum Jülich GmbH 52425 Jülich Germany Prof. Dr. Roger E. Miller Department of Chemistry The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, CB#3290 Venable Hall Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3290 USA Prof. Dr. Risto Nieminen COMP/ Laboratory of Physics Helsinki University of Technology 02150 Espoo Finland Prof. Dr. E. Joseph Nordgren Department of Physics Uppsala University Box 530 75121 Uppsala Sweden Prof. Dr. Johannes Pollmann Fachbereich Physik Institut für Festkörpertheorie Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster Wilhelm-Klemm-Strasse 10 48149 Münster Germany Contents Page Report of the Executive Director 1 - 11 International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) 12 - 20 Department of Inorganic Chemistry (AC) 21 - 90 Director: R. Schlögl Staff list Recent Developments Publications Invited Talks Department of Chemical Physics (CP) 91 - 143 Director: H.-J. Freund Staff list Recent Developments Publications Invited Talks Department of Molecular Physics (MP) 144 - 183 Director: G. Meijer Staff list Recent Developments Publications Invited Talks Department of Physical Chemistry (PC) 184 - 206 Director until November 2004: G. Ertl Acting Director: G. Meijer Staff list Recent Developments Publications Invited Talks Theory Department (TH) 207 - 252 Director: M. Scheffler Independent Junior Research Group (IG) Head: K. Reuter Staff list Recent Developments Publications Invited Talks Local Map - 1 - Report of the Executive Director Since the last evaluation of the Fritz Haber Institute by the Fachbeirat in November 2003 several important developments have taken place: • Gerard Meijer’s department is now fully operational. • Hardy Gross from the Freie Universität Berlin has been awarded one of the prestigious Max Planck Fellow positions, only recently installed by our President, at our institute. • As proposed by the collegium, the President of the Max Planck Society had called upon Lynn Gladden from Cambridge University to become Gerhard Ertl’s successor at the Institute. Unfortunately, this did not substantiate, due to personal reasons of the can- didate. In spite of this negative development, the Fritz Haber Institute was encouraged to continue the search process. The International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) “Complex Surfaces in Materi- als Science” is now in full operation. Together with the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the Freie Universität Berlin 27 students form 16 countries work together in the School. Every year two regular block courses of two weeks each take place and several other activities, including a visit to BASF early December 2005. We have included in this booklet a section dealing specifically with the School. The Fritz Haber Institute has continued to actively support the career of young scien- tists. The institute has seen 19 habilitations over the last 10 years. Within the same pe- riod, 34 scientists (including 17 of the above) have been appointed to high academic positions at universities. The institute typically supports 80-100 PhD students. Many of them are paid through outside funding. The Fritz Haber Institute continues to be very attractive for scientists from abroad ac- cording to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Our institute is ranked first among the non-university institutions even though some of those centers are an order of magni- tude bigger in personnel and budget. The institute also hosts about 10 apprentices in its various scientific departments and service groups. - 2 - The main research projects of the Fritz Haber Institute continue to be concerned with catalysis, as well as chemical and physical properties of surfaces, interfaces, molecules, clusters, and nanostructures. Currently, the institute has 42 positions out of which 24 are tenured for scientists, in addition to the 5 director positions and 148 positions for tech- nical staff. In addition, 4.5 positions are in service groups. The institute is involved in the following collaborative research centers (Sonderfor- schungsbereiche (SFB)) that strengthen the interaction with the Berlin universities: SFB 290 Metallische dünne Filme: Struktur, Magnetismus und elektronische Ei- genschaften (Metallic Thin Films: Structure, Magnetism, and Electronic Properties) SFB 296 Wachstumskorrelierte Eigenschaften niederdimensionaler Halbleiter- strukturen (Growth-Correlated Properties of Low Dimensional Semicon- ductor Structures) SFB 450 Analyse und Steuerung ultraschneller photoinduzierter Reaktionen (Ana- lysis and control of ultra fast photo-induced reactions) SFB 546 Struktur, Dynamik und Reaktivität von Übergangsmetalloxid-Aggregaten (Structure, Dynamics and Reactivity of Aggregates of Transition Metal Oxides) SFB 555 Komplexe nichtlineare Prozesse-Analyse-Simulation-Steuerung-Opti- mierung (Complex Nonlinear Processes–Analysis–Simulation Control– Optimization) SFB 658 Elementarprozesse in molekularen Schaltern auf Oberflächen (Elemen- tary Processes in Molecular Switches at Surfaces) Many scientists of the institute participate in DFG Priority Programs (Schwerpunktpro- gramme) that link institutes all over Germany. In addition, many projects are financed or co-financed by other agencies, such as the DAAD, VW foundation, BMBF, Zeit- stiftung, Bayerische Stiftung, C.N.R.S., G.I.F., CAPES, INTAS, EPSRC, ESF, EU, FOM, NSF and UCSB. There are also collaborations with industrial labs, e.g. BASF, Südchemie, Degussa, Toshiba, Sumitomo, Unaxis, MAN. - 3 - In the report for 2003 the sudden and severe budget cuts which hit the entire Max Planck Society were mentioned, with a reduction by 6 % compared to 2002. In view of the uncertainty regarding the future development for the federal science budget, the General Administration decided to adhere to a restrictive financial policy, with further severe reductions planned for the coming years 2004 through 2010. This meant, among other things, that more than 20 departments throughout the Society had to be closed down, and large budget cuts were imposed on the institutes. Fortunately, the Fritz Haber Institute managed to retain the Department of Physical Chemistry, since we were able to accommodate the budget cuts by reducing personnel. Then, in 2004, in a reversal of its previous decision, the Federal Government decided to raise the Science Budget by 3 %, thus permitting the Max Planck Society to remove some of the previously imposed con- straints, although a permanent reduction of the funds for the CPT-Section of 1.7 % re- mains in place. In 2004 a new method of financial planning was introduced in the Max Planck Society. The institutes now receive an annual and fixed core budget, which can be increased in step with price rises and salary increases. Any additional financial requirements such as special investments, expenditure for buildings etc. have to be separately applied for. The amount of this core budget is approximately the same as the institute's budget over the last ten years, which has remained constant throughout this period in spite of the general increase in cost of equipment and salaries. The institute was successful in applying for scientific investments in a special program launched by the General Administration in 2004. Moreover, a new "Independent Junior Research Group" was installed, funded entirely from the institute's budget. All in all it is fair to say that, through diligent planning and savings, the institute has gone through the period of financial uncertainty without major difficulties, and looks forward to a period of funding stability. The budget data in the figure reflect the trends described above: Overall stability! The investment shows variations due to the installment of new departments in 1996 (CP) and in 2002 (MP) as well as the special program launched by the General Administra- tion. The external funds have increased but all other parts of the budget are near by con- stant. This also applies to the investment budget when taking into account by the funds - 4 - due to the above-mentioned additional sources (see the dashed line from 2003 to 2005). The funds will slightly decline due to the implementation of a fixed core budget, and there is an