F. P. Schäfer

Fritz Peter Schäfer ( born January 15, 1931 in Hersfeld, † 25 April 2011) was a German physicist. He was Professor of Laser Physics and Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen.

Life

After graduating from high school in 1951 in Bad Hersfeld and a six-month internship, he studied physics at the University of Marburg. In 1957 he was physicist with a diploma thesis at the Institute for Physical Chemistry by Hans Kuhn. For his PhD, which he obtained in 1960, he wrote a work on electron systems of large organic dye molecules. For this he developed an analog computer on. As a research assistant at the Institute he built in 1963 by Theodore Maiman invented in 1960 by ruby laser. He continued his studies of dye molecules. In 1966 he developed the dye laser ( as independently about the same time Peter Sorokin at IBM ), which was operational on a wider spectral band. In 1967 he habilitated.

Fritz Peter Schäfer was appointed professor in 1969 and was Head of Department at the Institute of Physical Chemistry. In 1970 he was appointed as a director at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, where he established the Department of Laser Physics. In 1987 he founded with two colleagues the Laser-Laboratorium Göttingen, which creates a connection between research and industry. Around 1990, he conducted research especially on X-ray. In 1994 he became Professor Emeritus.

Fritz Peter Shepherd from 2001 was Managing Director, founded on the development of cruise airships LoftyCruiser GmbH & Co. KG.

Shepherd's work was initially rejected in Applied Physics Letters, arguing that the invention would have been already published by Sorokin. But Sorokin provided as a reviewer ( referee ) when resubmitting the work of shepherds that this was published .. Shepherd was the first to be an important aspect of the dye laser - its tunability.

Awards and honors

Shepherd received an honorary doctorates from the universities of Szeged in Hungary and Jena and was honorary professor of the Universities of Marburg and Göttingen.

He was a member of the existing 1987-1990 Academy of Sciences in Berlin and is an associate member of the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. He was a corresponding member of the Academy of Sciences and Literature in Mainz and the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen. He was a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.