2005
Theodor W. Hänsch shares the Nobel Prize for Physics 2005 with two American researchers.
Nobel Laureate Professor Theodor W. Hänsch | © LMU
Theodor W. Hänsch, born in 1941, has received the Nobel Prize in Physics in December 2005. Before moving to LMU in 1986, Hänsch had held a Chair at Stanford University, and in 1989 he became the second LMU professor to win the Leibniz Prize. He shared the Nobel Prize with the American researchers John L. Hall and Roy J. Glauber. Hänsch and Hall were explicitly cited for the development of laser-based, high-precision spectroscopy, which enables the frequency of light waves emitted by atoms and molecules to be determined with unprecedented accuracy.