Prof. Alfred Laubereau (February 25, 1942 - February 25, 2025) was appointed Full Professor of Experimental Physics at TUM in October 1993 and was a world-class laser spectroscopist who remained closely associated with science even after his retirement in April 2012. He also impressed with his upright, Humboldtian commitment to the Department of Physics, which he led as Dean for a decade.

In Laubereau, the Technical University of Munich has lost an excellent, highly deserving and highly respected member. The Chair of Experimental Physics E11 has lost an outstanding and dedicated director and scientist of many years. The former staff are losing a mentor, role model and, to some, a loyal colleague and friend.

Laubereau studied physics at the Technische Hochschule München, the former name of TUM, in the 1960s. In 1970, he completed his doctoral thesis on the generation and compression of ultrashort laser pulses working for Prof. Wolfgang Kaiser. At the time, Kaiser and his chair were the center of ultrafast physics and later ultrafast physics in Germany. Laubereau remained on friendly terms with Kaiser and looked after his elderly doctoral supervisor until his death in 2023.

Laubereau recognised that research into ultrafast physical phenomena could be possible through the development of short-pulse laser sources. He was the first to deliver reliable results on dephasing processes in matter on this time scale with a picosecond Nd glass laser he built in single pulse mode.

In the 1970s, Laubereau and Kaiser were the first to understand that time-resolved infrared spectroscopy could provide valuable insights into the dynamics of local structures in solids and liquids. Hundreds of research groups worldwide have taken up this approach and are still pursuing it today. This groundbreaking research work made him one of the pioneers of time-resolved vibrational spectroscopy.

After Laubereau’s habilitation in 1975, he accepted the appointment as Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Bayreuth in 1978. There, he developed femtosecond lasers and devoted himself to new research topics like Raman spectroscopy. In the 1980s, Laubereau was a visiting professor at the Laboratoire d’Optique Quantique du CNRS in Palaiseau, France. His work on the lifetime and properties of individual and collective vibrational quantum states in gases and liquids dates to this period, work that played a decisive role in the development of quantum computers.

In 1993, Lauberau returned to his alma mater and took over the Chair of Experimental Physics (E11) in the Physics Department at TUM, where he remained true to his subject area of ultrafast optical spectroscopy of solids and liquids. His profound understanding of the properties of the hydrogen bridge network played a crucial role in the discovery of so-called “hot ice”. Lauberau and colleagues were the first to show that it is possible to briefly heat ice well above the freezing point.

Laubereau intensively promoted scientific exchange. He was instrumental in organizing major conferences, such as Ultrafast Phenomena in Garmisch, Time Resolved Vibrational Spectroscopy in Freising, as well as a conference in Bischofsgrün. At the same time, he was strongly committed to the interests of students and young scientists. Several members of his staff later became professors at various universities.

From 1999 to 2009, Laubereau held the office of Dean of the Department of Physics and provided valuable services to TUM and the department in particular. After his retirement, Laubereau remained loyal to research and the Chair, which he attended two days a week. During this time, he devoted himself completely to a new field of research, namely climate change.

Laubereau’s scientific work was recognized with a honorary doctorate from Vilnius University (Lituania) and the Nernst-Haber-Bodenstein prize from the German Bunsen Society.

The TUM School of Natural Sciences honors the memory of Prof. Alfred Laubereau and expresses its deepest sympathy to his family and friends.

Prof. Reinhard Kienberger