Oliver Gessner

Research in our group explores ultrafast dynamics in molecules, clusters, and interfacial systems by a variety of state-of-the-art time-resolved XUV and X-ray spectroscopy as well as X-ray and electron imaging techniques. We strive to provide the most detailed understanding possible of the atomic-scale couplings, correlations and dynamics that govern collective behavior in atomic clusters, chemical transformations in molecules, and solar light harvesting processes in molecular and condensed phase systems. Our experiments reach sensitivities on the level of single electrons, atoms, and molecules, and cover temporal scales ranging from femtoseconds to microseconds. We employ laboratory based femtosecond XUV transient absorption, XUV photoelectron and ion imaging, X-ray free electron laser (X-FEL) and synchrotron based time-resolved X-ray spectroscopy and coherent diffractive imaging techniques, as well as ultrafast electron diffraction (UED) to study ultrafast reaction dynamics in molecules, energy and charge transfer dynamics at interfaces relevant for solar light harvesting applications, as well as the fundamental dynamics underlying the coupled and correlated motion in ground state, excited state, and highly ionized atomic clusters.  

Recent publications:

Zachery Donnellan, Carlos Mora Perez, Kin Fung Lai, Sahan D. Perera, Lars Hoffmann, Marieke Stapf, Dmitrii Potorochin, Drew M. Glenna, Yvonne Joseph, Lukas Wenthaus, Dmytro Kutnyakhov, Nils Wind, Siarhei Dziarzhytski, Federico Pressacco, Daniel M. Neumark, Wolfgang Eberhardt, Serguei Molodtsov, Friedrich Roth, Jin Qian, and Oliver Gessner, “Quantized Multi-Electron Transfer in a Plasmonic Heterojunction”, Science, in revision.

Taran Driver, Zhaoheng Guo, Erik Isele, Gilbert Grell, Marco Ruberti, Jordan T. O’Neal, Oliver Alexander, Sandra Beauvarlet, David Cesar, Joseph Duris, Douglas Garratt, Kirk A. Larsen, Siqi Li, Přemysl Kolorenč, Gregory A. McCracken, Daniel Tuthill, Zifan Wang, Nora Berrah, Christoph Bostedt, Kurtis Borne, Xinxin Cheng, Louis F. DiMauro, Gilles Doumy, Paris L. Franz, Andrei Kamalov, Xiang Li, Ming-Fu Lin, Razib Obaid, Antonio Picón, River R. Robles, Daniel Rolles, Artem Rudenko, Moniruzzaman Shaikh, Daniel S. Slaughter, Nicholas S. Sudar, Emily Thierstein, Kiyoshi Ueda, Enliang Wang, Anna L. Wang, Thorsten Weber, Thomas J. A. Wolf, Linda Young, Zhen Zhang, Vitali Averbukh, Oliver Gessner, Philip H. Bucksbaum, Matthias F. Kling, Alicia Palacios, Fernando Martín, Jon P. Marangos, Peter Walter, Agostino Marinelli, James P. Cryan, “Attosecond Coherent Electron Motion in a Photoionized Aromatic Molecule”, Nat. Phys. 22, 1459 (2026), DOI: 10.1038/s41567-026-03360-x.

Alexandra J. Feinberg, Amandeep Singh, Catherine A. Saladrigas, Landin Stein, Deepak Verma, Sean M.O. O’Connell-Lopez, Swetha Erukala, Benjamin W. Toulson, Mario Borgwardt, Niranjan Shivaram, Ming-Fu Lin, Andre Al Haddad, Wolfgang Jäger, Christoph Bostedt, Peter Walter, Oliver Gessner, Andrey F. Vilesov, “X-ray Coherent Diffractive Imaging of Large Helium Nanodroplets Doped with Small Molecules”, J. Phys. Chem A 130, 212 (2026), DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpca.5c07766.

Lukas Wenthaus, Nikolay M. Kabachnik, Mario Borgwardt, Steffen Palutke, Dmytro Kutnyakhov, Federico Pressacco, Markus Scholz, Dmitrii Potorochin, Nils Wind, Stefan Düsterer, Günter Brenner, Oliver Gessner, Serguei Molodtsov, Wolfgang Eberhardt, and Friedrich Roth, “Insights into the laser-assisted photoelectric effect from solid-state surfaces”, Phys. Rev. B 110, 235406 (2024), DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.110.235406.

Lars Hoffmann, Benjamin W. Toulson, Jie Yang, Catherine A. Saladrigas, Alfred Zong, Sri Bhavya Muvva, Joao Pedro Figueira Nunes, Alexander Reid, Andrew R. Attar, Duan Luo, Fuhao Ji, Ming-Fu Lin, Qingyuan Fan, Stephen Weathersby, Xiaozhe Shen, Xijie Wang, Thomas J. A. Wolf, Daniel M. Neumark, Stephen R. Leone, Michael W. Zuerch, Martin Centurion and Oliver Gessner, “UV-induced reaction pathways in bromoform probed with ultrafast electron diffraction”, J. Am. Chem. Soc. 146, 28070 (2024), DOI: 10.1021/jacs.4c07165.

Member, Committee on Atomic Molecular and Optical Sciences (CAMOS), The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine – 2024

Elected chair-line member of the American Physical Society Division of Chemical Physics (DCP) – 2023

Fellow of the American Physical Society – 2015

LBNL Director’s Award for Exceptional Scientific Achievement – 2014

Early Career Research Program Award of the DOE Office of Science – 2012

Steacie Institute for Molecular Sciences Annual Award for Scientific Breakthrough and Technical Innovation – 2005

NSERC Visiting Fellowship in Canadian Government Laboratories – 2002.