From Berlin-Dahlem to the Fronts of World War I: The Role of Fritz Haber and His Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in German Chemical Warfare

There is little doubt that Fritz Haber (1868–1934) was the driving force behind the centrally directed development of chemical warfare in Germany, whose use during World War I violated international law and elicited both immediate and enduring moral criticism. The chlorine cloud attack at Ypres on 22 April 1915 amounted to the first use of a weapon of mass destruction and as such marks a turning point in world history. Following the “success” at Ypres, Haber, eager to employ science in resolving the greatest strategic challenge of the war—the stalemate of trench warfare—promptly transformed his Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry in Berlin-Dahlem into a center for the development of chemical weapons and of protective measures against them. This article traces in some detail the path from Berlin-Dahlem to the fronts of World War I, lays out the indispensible role of Fritz Haber in German chemical warfare and provides a summary of his views on chemical weapons, which he never renounced

Light-induced dynamical processes in finite and extended systems from TDDFT

Trabajo presentado al "Modeling Single-Molecule Junctions: Novel Spectroscopies and Control", celebrado en Berlin (Alemania) del 14 al 16 de Octubre de 2013.In this talk we will review the recent advances within density-functional and many-body based schemes to describe spectroscopic properties of complex systems with special emphasis to modelling time and spatially resolved electron spectroscopies (including transient pump-probe techniques). Pros and cons of present functionals will be highlighted and provide insight in how to overcome those limitations by merging concepts from many-body perturbation theory and time-dependent density functional theory. We will discuss some of the theoretical approaches developed in the group (and under development) for the characterisation of matter out of equilibrium, the control material processes at the electronic level and tailor material properties, and master energy and information on the nanoscale to propose new devices with capabilities. We will focus on examples linked to the efficient conversion of light into electricity or chemical fuels ("artificial photosynthesis") and the design on new nanostructured based optoelectronic devices based on inorganic nanotubes, among others. The goal of the group activities in the long-run is to provide a detailed, efficient, and at the same time accurate microscopic approach for the ab-initio description and control of the dynamics of decoherence and dissipation in quantum many-body systems. With the help of quantum optimal control (QOC) theory and the mastery over spectroscopy we could direct the movement of electrons, selectively trigger chemical reactions and processes, and create new materials.Peer reviewe