Uwe Bergmann

Uwe Bergmann is a German-American physicist and the Martin L. Perl Endowed Professor in Ultrafast X-ray Science in the Department of Physics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research focuses on the development and application of synchrotron radiation and X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) techniques, including X-ray emission spectroscopy, resonant inelastic X-ray scattering, and X-ray fluorescence imaging.

Bergmann held senior leadership roles at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, including Deputy Director (2009-2013) and Interim Director (2013-2014) of the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the world’s first hard X-ray free-electron laser.

Early life and education Bergmann is from Karlsruhe, Germany. He earned a Pre-Diplom in Physics from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (1986), a Diplom in Physics from the University of Hamburg (1990), and a Ph.D. in Physics from Stony Brook University in 1994.

Career Following his Ph.D., Bergmann completed postdoctoral research at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble, France (1994-1996) and at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (1996-1999). He subsequently held positions as a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (1999-2003), Staff Scientist and Senior Staff Scientist at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (2003-2015), Deputy Director of the LCLS (2009-2013), and Interim Director of the LCLS (2013-2014).

Research Bergmann’s research centers on advancing synchrotron and XFEL-based X-ray techniques for time-resolved spectroscopy and imaging, often in large international collaborations. Ultrafast studies of photosynthesis - Using XFEL pulses, his collaborations have captured structural intermediates in the oxygen-evolving complex of photosystem II during water oxidation. Stimulated X-ray emission and attosecond pulses - Recent work demonstrated the first attosecond-scale hard X-ray lasing.

His techniques have also been applied to the structure of water and aqueous solutions, functional 2D materials, hydrocarbons, and paleontological specimens such as the Archaeopteryx fossil.

Selected publications