Prof. Dr Gerd Litfin

Professor Dr Gerd Litfin is senator of the Helmholtz Association for the Research Field "Key Technologies" and executive associate of Arkadien Verwaltungs KG in Göttingen.

After graduating from Hanover University, Litfin earned his doctorate and habilitation there at the renowned Institute for Quantum Optics. In 1983 he became an unsalaried lecturer at Hanover University and obtained an associate professorship in 1988. During research stays at Rice University in Houston and at Université Paris-Nord and in numerous publications and presentations Litfin specialised in optics and laser research. He joined the executive board of Spindler & Hoyer GmbH in 1983 and laid the foundations for the LINOS Group with a management buyout in 1996 and the takeover of various companies in the optics sector. With Litfin as chairman of the management board, the LINOS AG went public in 2000.

Litfin is involved in many different scientific and business-oriented institutions on an honorary basis; for example, from 2002 to 2010, he was spokesman for the steering committee of the “German Agenda on Optical Technologies for the 21st Century" project and, since 1995, he has chaired the board of trustees of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry.

In 2004, he was awarded the Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany in recognition of many years of service as an outstanding scientist and entrepreneur. In 2006 he and his wife set up the Susanne and Gerd Litfin Foundation. In April of the same year he was elected president of the German Physical Society and has been its vice-president since April 2010.