LIA announces recipient of 2017 Schawlow Award

The Laser Institute of America (LIA), Orlando, Fla., has named Dr. Paul Seiler as winner of the 2017 Arthur L. Schawlow Award. The LIA selected Seiler for pioneering laser use, expanding the field of industrial laser use, and creating innovative tools. He has shown a fundamental understanding of laser materials interactions and how laser capabilities can be applied to daily life.

The LIA created the annual award to honor those who distinguish themselves through excellence in work related to basic and applied laser research. It is named after its initial recipient and 1981 Physics Nobel Prize Winner, Arthur L. Schawlow, whose work was instrumental to the invention of the laser.

Seiler, who encountered the laser for the first time in 1963, studied precision mechanics at the University of Applied Sciences in Karlsruhe, Germany, and worked for 11 years as the managing director of TRUMPF Laser GmbH & Co. KG in Schramberg, Germany. In 1971 his first laser was applied in a 24/7 application. He also applied a fiber-optic cable, known as the Laser Light Cable, to the laser, a development crucial to the success of solid-state lasers.