Ferenc Krausz - Short Biography
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Ferenc Krausz was born in Mor, Hungary, 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 an Associate Professor in 1998 and became Full Professor in the same department in 1999. In 2003 he was appointed Director of the Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik in Garching, Germany, and since October 2004 he has also been Professor of Physics and Chair of Experimental Physics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

His research includes 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 direction in attosecond physics is the control and real-time observation of the atomic-scale motion of electrons and the development of brilliant X-ray and charged-particle sources for applications in physics and biomedicine. He co-founded Femtolasers GmbH, a Vienna-based company specializing in Ti:sapphire femtosecond laser sources and initiated Ultrafast Innovations GmbH, a joint venture of the Max Planck Society and the Ludwig-Maximilian-Universität München making cutting-edge ultrafast technologies available to research groups all over the world. Moreover, he has co-initiated and been a driving force behind several Pan-European research endeavours and collaborative research actions such as the LASERLAB Europe and several Maie Curie-networks, as well as the large-scale infrastructure Extreme Light Infrastructure (ELI).

Ferenc Krausz is a citizen of both Hungary and Austria and lives with wife Angela and his children Anita and Martina in Garching, Germany. He feels greatly privileged to live at a time when borders between these and other countries in Europe are being peacefully dismantled.