Claus E. Rolfs (born 1941 in Bad Peterstal) is a German experimental physicist, known for his laboratory research related to nuclear astrophysics.
From 1973 he was a close associate of William A. Fowler at Caltech, where Rolfs was a Millikan Fellow.
[citation needed] Rolfs has collaborated in many laboratory experiments that collect data on the nuclear fusion reactions that also take place in the Sun.
[1] Rolfs claimed that "by encasing certain radioisotopes in metal and chilling them close to absolute zero, it ought to be possible to slash their half-lives from millennia to just a few years.
In 2010 he received the Hans A. Bethe Prize for "seminal contributions to the experimental determination of nuclear cross-sections in stars, including the first direct measurement of the key 3He fusion reaction at solar conditions.".