Ferenc Krausz

Ferenc Krausz was born in Mor, Hungary, on 17 May 1962. He was awarded his M. S. in Electrical Engineering at Budapest University of Technology in 1985, his Ph. D. in Quantum Electronics at Vienna University of Technology in 1991, and his “Habilitation” degree in the same field at the same university in 1993. He joined the Department of Electrical Engineering as Associate Professor in 1998 and became Full Professor in the same department in 1999. In 2003 he was appointed as Director of Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching, Germany, and since October 2004 he has also been Professor of Physics and Chair of Experimental Physics at Ludwig Maximilian’s University of Munich.
His research has included nonlinear light-matter interactions, ultrashort light pulse generation from the infrared to the x-ray spectral range, and studies of ultrafast microscopic processes. By using chirped multilayer mirrors, his group made intense light pulses comprising merely a few wave cycles available for a wide range of applications and utilized them for pushing the frontiers of ultrafast science into the attosecond regime. His most recent research focuses on attosecond physics: the control and real-time observation of the atomic-scale motion of electrons. He co-founde Femtolasers GmbH, a Vienna-based company specializing in cutting-edge femtosecond laser sources.
Prof. Krausz´s contributions to these fields were recognized by numerous awards, including the 1998 Carl Zeiss Award of the Ernst Abbe Foundation (Germany), the 2002 Wittgenstein Prize (Austria), the 2003 Julius Springer Prize in Applied Physics (USA, Germany), the 2006 Leibniz Prize (Germany) and the 2006 IEEE/LEOS Quantum Electronics Award (USA). He was elected a member of the Austrian Academy of Science and holds an professorship in electrical engineering at the Vienna University of Technology since 2005.
Ferenc Krausz is a citizen of Hungary and Austria and lives, with his wife, Angela, and children, Anita and Martina, in Garching, Germany. He feels greatly priviledged to be living at a time when borders between these and other countries in Europe are being peacefully dismantled.