New laser processing department head at the LZH

Hannover, Germany – The new Head of the Materials and Processes Department of the Laser Zentrum Hannover e.V. (LZH), a major developer of industrial laser technology is Dr.-Ing. Stefan Kaierle.

Dr. Kaierle attained his doctorate degree at the RWTH in Aachen in 1998 on the topic of “Autonomous Production Cells for Laser Welding”. Subsequently, he worked at the Fraunhofer Institute for Laser Technology (ILT), where he was the head of several departments – lastly in the field of system technology, where he worked with all laser processes, especially those used in laser material processing. “I think it is important to bring research from the labs to the shop floor, to build a bridge between the laser institutes and industrial firms,” says Kaierle.

At the Materials and Processes Department, his research fields of interest are in the automobile, aeronautics, tools and machines, and bio-medicine technologies, and range from laser welding and cutting metals, to surface technologies such as repair processes or rapid prototyping, laser safety, laser-guided TIG/MIG welding or process analysis and simulation.

Dr. Kaierle is editor-in-chief of the journals “LIGHT – Science & Applications,” and head of the board of the European Laser Institute (ELI), a European network for bringing existing know-how in laser technology together, and supporting innovative developments in the field of laser technology and photonics. Since 2007, he has been a guest professor at the Beijing University (BUT), and in 2011 he organized the 1st International Conference on Frontiers of Laser Processing (ICFL) that will take place every two years.