Daniel M. Neumark

About

Daniel M. Neumark is the Melvin Calvin Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. Born in 1955, he holds a B.A. and M.A. from Harvard University (1977) and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from UC Berkeley (1984). His research focuses on physical chemistry, molecular structure, and dynamics, with a particular emphasis on probing fundamental problems in chemical physics through state-of-the-art experiments. His laboratory projects include reaction dynamics of bimolecular and unimolecular reactions, cluster spectroscopy and dynamics, and ultrafast x-ray science, utilizing femtosecond and attosecond light sources to initiate and probe dynamics in the soft x-ray regime. Much of his work employs photoelectron spectroscopy of negative ions to investigate the spectroscopy and dynamics of transient and reactive species, leading to new insights into transition state spectroscopy, cluster electronic and vibrational spectroscopy, photodissociation of reactive radicals, hydrated electron dynamics, and ultrafast helium nanodroplet dynamics. Throughout his career, he has received numerous awards and honors, including election to the National Academy of Sciences, fellowships in major scientific societies, and recognition for his contributions to chemical physics and physical chemistry.

Research topics

• Physics
• Atomic physics
• Optics
• Molecular physics
• Materials science
• Physical chemistry
• Quantum mechanics
• Chemistry
• Nuclear magnetic resonance
• Optoelectronics

Selected publications

• Accurate vertical ionization energy and work function determinations of liquid water and aqueous solutions

  Chemical Science · 2021 · 78 citations

  The absolute-scale electronic energetics of liquid water and aqueous solutions, both in the bulk and at associated interfaces, are the central determiners of water-based chemistry. However, such information is generally experimentally inaccessible. Here we demonstrate that a refined implementation of the liquid microjet photoelectron spectroscopy (PES) technique can be adopted to address this. Implementing concepts from condensed matter physics, we establish novel all-liquid-phase vacuum and equ…

  DOI

• Revealing electronic state-switching at conical intersections in alkyl iodides by ultrafast XUV transient absorption spectroscopy

  Nature Communications · 2020 · 68 citations

  Conical intersections between electronic states often dictate the chemistry of photoexcited molecules. Recently developed sources of ultrashort extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulses tuned to element-specific transitions in molecules allow for the unambiguous detection of electronic state-switching at a conical intersection. Here, the fragmentation of photoexcited iso-propyl iodide and tert-butyl iodide molecules (i-C3H7I and t-C4H9I) through a conical intersection between 3Q0/1Q1 spin–orbit states is…

  DOI

• Simultaneous Observation of Carrier-Specific Redistribution and Coherent Lattice Dynamics in 2H-MoTe₂ with Femtosecond Core-Level Spectroscopy

  ACS Nano · 2020 · 56 citations

  within a single experiment, our work provides a benchmark for understanding the interplay between electronic and structural dynamics in photoexcited nanomaterials.

  DOI

• Solid state core-exciton dynamics in NaCl observed by tabletop attosecond four-wave mixing spectroscopy

  Physical review. B./Physical review. B · 2021 · 34 citations

  Nonlinear wave mixing in solids with ultrafast x-rays can provide insight into complex electronic dynamics of materials. Here, tabletop-based attosecond noncollinear four-wave mixing (FWM) spectroscopy using one extreme ultraviolet (XUV) pulse from high harmonic generation and two separately timed few-cycle near-infrared (NIR) pulses characterizes the dynamics of the ${\mathrm{Na}}^{+}$ ${L}_{2,3}$ edge core-excitons in NaCl around 33.5 eV. An inhomogeneous distribution of core-excitons underlyi…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy of surfactants on sub-micron aqueous aerosols

  Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics · 2025-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  at room temperature; a value that is consistent with prior literature reports. Analysis of photoelectron angular distributions, peak areas, and secondary electron escape barriers indicates a transition from a disordered surfactant layer at low [OTG] to a more structured layer at high [OTG]. These results link macroscopic surface tension measurements to nanoparticle surfactant behavior and demonstrate the utility of A-VMI-XPS in probing surfactant coating structure on free aerosols, with implicat…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Spectroscopy, Dynamics, and Reactivity of Excess Electrons in Clusters

  NSF · $725k · 2007–2010

• Spectroscopy and Dynamics of Semiconductor, Metal, and Carbon Clusters using Photoelectron Imaging

  NSF · $450k · 2005–2008

• Dynamics in Anion Clusters and Liquid Jets Using Ultraviolet and Extreme-Ultraviolet Time-Resolved Photoelectron Spectroscopy

  NSF · $729k · 2017–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Stephen R. Leone

  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  580 shared

• Knut R. Asmis

  Leipzig University

  146 shared

• Étienne Garand

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  118 shared

• Mark Babin

  113 shared

• Oliver Geßner

  Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

  112 shared

• Jessalyn A. DeVine

  University of Göttingen

  102 shared

• Mark J. Abel

  Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society

  100 shared

• Marissa L. Weichman

  Princeton University

  93 shared

Awards & honors

• Office of Naval Research Young Investigator (1987)
• National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator…
• Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (1989)
• Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar (1991)
• Fellow, American Physical Society (1993)

Similar researchers at University of California, Berkeley

• Peidong Yangh-262
• Jennifer A. Doudnah-230
• Jeffrey R. Longh-189