Matias Bargheer is professor of physics at the University of Potsdam (UP) and head of the joint research group “Ultrafast Dynamics” at the Helmholtz-Center Berlin for Materials and energy (HZB) since 2009. In 2007 he received the Gustav-Hertz Award of the german physical society for his work on development and application of femtosecond x-ray diffraction. In recent years he has been a guest professor at the Institut Jean Lamour at the Université de Nancy in France.

His broad research interests range from picosecond ultrasonics over ultrafast magnetism and ferroelectricity to plasmon assisted chemistry. These fields are connected by the topic non-equilibrium heat transport at the nanoscale and by the application of ultrafast laser techniques.

Prof. Bargheer has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles. His group operates a unique combination of ultrafast x-ray setups: A laser-based femtosecond x-ray plasma source at the UP and a beamline for time-resolved x-ray diffraction at the HZB. For the context of picosecond ultrasonics, a white-light setup for time-domain Brillouin scattering complements the experiments.