IPG's Valentin Gapontsev wins Arthur L. Schawlow Award

Nov. 10, 2009

IPG Photonics Corporation (Oxford, MA), manufacturer of high-power fiber lasers and amplifiers, proudly announced that its founder, chairman, and CEO Valentin Gapontsev was the recipient of the Laser Institute of America's (LIA; Orlando, FL) 2009 Arthur L. Schawlow award. The Schawlow award, which was first presented by the LIA in 1982, honors individuals who have made distinguished contributions to applications of lasers in science, industry, education or medicine.

Gail Overton

The award is named for Professor Arthur L. Schawlow, who received The Nobel Prize in Physics in 1981 for his contribution to the development of laser spectroscopy, and is LIA's highest achievement award.

The Award was presented at LIA's International Congress on Applications of Lasers & Electro-Optics (ICALEO) conference, November 4, 2009. At the ceremony, Gapontsev was recognized as "the father of the fiber-laser industry as it is known today, who has pioneered the field in five decades of academic work and as the founder and CEO of a global technology company that continues to transform the laser industry." Gapontsev joins the world-renowned list of recipients including Arthur Schawlow, Arthur Guenther and Theodor Hänsch.

Valentin P. Gapontsev, Ph.D., founded IPG in 1990 and has been CEO and chairman of IPG's Board of Directors since the Company's inception. Prior to that time, he served as senior scientist in laser material physics and head of the laboratory at the Soviet Academy of Science's Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics in Moscow. He has over 30 years of academic research experience in the fields of solid-state laser materials, laser spectroscopy, and non-radiative energy transfer between rare-earth ions and is the author of many scientific publications and several international patents. Gapontsev holds a Ph.D. in Physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. In 2006, he was awarded the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Industrial Products and Services in New England.

For more information, go to www.ipgphotonics.com.

About the Author

Gail Overton | Senior Editor (2004-2020)

Gail has more than 30 years of engineering, marketing, product management, and editorial experience in the photonics and optical communications industry. Before joining the staff at Laser Focus World in 2004, she held many product management and product marketing roles in the fiber-optics industry, most notably at Hughes (El Segundo, CA), GTE Labs (Waltham, MA), Corning (Corning, NY), Photon Kinetics (Beaverton, OR), and Newport Corporation (Irvine, CA). During her marketing career, Gail published articles in WDM Solutions and Sensors magazine and traveled internationally to conduct product and sales training. Gail received her BS degree in physics, with an emphasis in optics, from San Diego State University in San Diego, CA in May 1986.