Nobel laureate in physics Ferenc Krausz receives Minister-President’s Honorary Award

LMU physicist and Nobel laureate Professor Ferenc Krausz has received the Bavarian Minister-President’s Honorary Award. He was given the prize in April as part of the “B.DiGiTAL 2025” Bavarian Digital Awards at the Augsburg Rocketeer Festival. Krausz is a “pioneer of attosecond physics,” said Dr. Florian Herrmann, Head of the Bavarian State Chancellery and State Minister for Federal and Media Affairs, who presented the award on behalf of Minister-President Dr. Markus Söder. “Ferenc Krausz’s groundbreaking research is yielding advances in medicine and IT – with potential for many further revolutionary developments.”

“The award by Minister-President Söder is especially meaningful, as it recognizes not only the importance of digital innovation, but also the role of research in the development of pioneering technologies. As someone from the world of basic research, it’s a great honor to be acknowledged in this way,” said Krausz

In 2001, Krausz and his team were the first to generate light pulses in the attosecond range, allowing electron movements to be observed in real time. Krausz, who originally studied electrical engineering and physics, has been Chair Professor of Experimental Physics / Laser Physics at LMU since 2004 and Director at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics since 2003. For his achievements in the field of attosecond physics, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2023 alongside many other awards.

Krausz is recognized worldwide as a leading scientist in the field of attosecond light pulses, explained Florian Herrmann at the awards ceremony in Augsburg. “He combines top-level research in physics with interdisciplinary progress in a unique way. His developments have enabled, for example, the targeted further development of medical diagnostic techniques.” Even more groundbreaking, according to Herrmann, was the potential of attosecond physics for information technology: “It could catapult today’s computing power into previously unimaginable dimensions.”

While Ferenc Krausz received the Minister-President’s Honorary Award, the B.DiGiTAL Prize went to the founders and organizers of the Rocketeer Festival.