Friedrich Břetislav

Prof., RNDr., CSc.
Born on May 29, 1953 in Prague

• Experimental and theoretical chemical/molecular physics (interactions of molecules with fields, molecular collisions and spectroscopy, cold molecules)
• Honorary member of Learned Society since 2011.

Educational and professional preparation

• J. Neruda Gymnasium, Prague, 1968-71;
• RNDr in Chemistry, Charles University, Prague, 1971-76, adviser Karel Prochazka;
• PhD (candidate of science) in Chemical Physics, J. Heyrovsky Institute of Physical Chemistry and Electrochemistry, Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague, 1977-81, advisers: V. Cermak and Z. Herman;
• Habilitation in Physics, Charles University, Prague, 1996.

Employment and academic positions

• Junior and Senior Research Scientist, J. Heyrovsky Institute of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, Prague (1983-87);

• Research Associate, Department of Chemistry, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, U.S.A. (1981-82);
• Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, Max-Planck-Institut für Strömungsforschung, Göttingen, Germany (1986-87);
• Research Associate, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology (1987-1996), and Department of Physics (1994-1996), Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, U.S.A.
• Senior Research Fellow, Harvard University (1996-2003);
• Lecturer on Chemistry, Harvard University (1997-2003);
• Research Group Leader, Fritz-Haber-Institute der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (since 2003);
• Senior Research Associate, Department of Physics, Harvard University (since 2003);
• Honorarprofessor, Technische Universität, Berlin (since 2006);
• Co-director, History and Foundations of Quantum Physics, Max-Planck- Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Berlin (since 2006);
• Spokesman, Centennial Project, Fritz-Haber-Institut (since 2008).

Notable awards

• Iberdrola Professorship, High Council for Scientific Research, Madrid, Spain (1997);
• Karel Preis Prize, Czech Republic (2007);
• Outstanding Referee Award, American Physical Society (2009).

Selected publications

• M. Lemeshko – M. Mustafa – S. Kais – B. Friedrich: Supersymmetric factorization yields exact solutions to the molecular Stark effect problem for stretched states, Physical Review A 83, (2011) 043415-1-4.
• B. Friedrich, A molecular merry-go-round, Physics Today 66 (2011) 66-67.
• J. James – T. Steinhauser – D. Hoffmann – B. Friedrich: One Hundred Years of Research at the Intersection of Chemistry and Physics: The Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society 1911-2011, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin (2011).
• M. Lemeshko – B. Friedrich, Probing weakly bound molecules with nonresonant light, Physical Review Letters 103 (2009) 053003-1-4.
• R.V. Krems – W.C. Stwalley – B. Friedrich (eds.), Cold molecules: theory, experiment, applications, Taylor & Francis, London (2009).
• L. Cai – J. Marango – B. Friedrich, Time-dependent alignment and orientation of molecules in combined electrostatic and pulsed nonresonant laser fields, Physical Review Letters 86 (2001) 775-778.
• J. Ortigoso – M. Rodriguez – M. Gupta – B. Friedrich, Time evolution of pendular states created by the interaction of molecular polarizability with a pulsed nonresonant laser field, The Journal of Chemical Physics 110 (1999) 3870-3875.
• B. Friedrich – D. Herschbach, Space Quantization: Otto Stern’s Lucky Star, Daedalus 127 (1998) 165-191.
• J.D. Weinstein – R. deCarvalho – T. Guillet – B. Friedrich – J.M. Doyle, Magnetic trapping of calcium monohydride molecules at milikelvin temperatures, Nature 395 (1998) 148-150.
• B. Friedrich – D. Herschbach, Alignment and trapping of molecules in intense laser fields, Physical Review Letters 74 (1995) 4623-4626.
• B. Friedrich – D. Herschbach, Spatial orientation of molecules in strong electric fields and evidence for pendular states, Nature 353 (1991) 412-414.