Field of Work
The Institute of Laser Technologies at the University of Stuttgart aims at the progress of laser technologies and its successful usage in industrial production. They want to achieve this goal with research and development as well as teaching activities. The institute puts its main focus on areas of radiation sources (development of laser systems), optical elements and components for beam guidance and beam shaping, interaction between laser beam and work piece and process development itself (laser-based welding, cutting, drilling structuring etc.).
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Personal Information
Thomas Graf was born in Switzerland in 1966. He received the physics M.Sc. degree in 1993 and the Ph.D. degree in 1996 from the University of Bern. After 15 months of research at Strathclyde University in Glasgow (UK) he was appointed head of the High-Power Lasers Group at the Institute of Applied Physics at the University of Bern in April 1999 where he was awarded the venia docendi in 2001 and appointed assistant professor in April 2002. In June 2004 he was appointed university professor and director of the Institute of Laser Technologies (IFSW) at the University of Stuttgart (D). At the IFSW Prof. Graf is engaged in high-power laser systems, laser beam shaping and laser applications in manufacturing. At the University of Stuttgart Prof. Graf was vice dean of the faculty of Engineering Design, Production Engineering and Automotive Engineering from October 2010 to February 2013 and is vice rector for Knowledge and Technology Transfer from February 2013 to September 2018.
From 2001 to 2007 Prof. Graf served as a board member of the Swiss Society for Optics and Microscopy (SSOM), from 2008 to 2012 he was a board member of the European Optical Society (EOS), he is a board member of Photonics BW e.V., since 2016 as its chair, and is a member of the German Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft Lasertechnik e.V., WLT (Scientific Society for Laser Technology), since 2013 member of its board as vice president Engineering Sciences. Since 2009 he is a member of the supervisory board, since 2014 as its chair, of the TLB GmbH.