Wolfgang Kaiser (physicist)


Wolfgang Kaiser is a German physicist who worked in the fields of laser and solid-state physics.

Career

Kaiser was awarded his doctorate in Erlangen in 1952, worked as scientist at Purdue University, and in 1954, he joined the US Army Signal Corps Engineering Laboratories in Fort Monmouth. From 1957 to 1964, Kaiser worked at Bell Laboratories in Murray Hill. In 1964, he became a professor for experimental physics at the Technische Universität München, where he performed research on laser physics.

Research

Kaiser is internationally recognized for his pioneering work on lasers with ultra-short pulses which find many applications in biophysical and chemical equipment. For example, he showed the molecular reactions regarding the photochemistry of bacteriorhodopsin in photosynthesis. He was involved in the development of ruby lasers and discovered the two-photon absorption with C. G. B. Garrett. The two-photon absorption was postulated by Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1931 and has become an important method for laser spectrometer applications. Furthermore, Kaiser and his colleagues looked at, and simulated Raman scattering, Brillouin scattering, and the duration of existence of phonons in solid-state matter using Raman spectroscopy. Other topics Kaiser worked on include semi-conductors as well as nonlinear optical issues.

Honors and Fellowships

Wolfgang Kaiser has got multiple honorary doctorates, from the Purdue University and others, and he is a member of the Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Academia Europaea.

Publications