Herbert Walther (January 19, 1935 in Ludwigshafen/Rhein, Germany – July 22, 2006 in Munich) was a leader in the fields of quantum optics and laser physics.
He was a founding director of the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics (MPQ) in Garching, Germany.
[1] He also was Chair of Physics at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.
At the time of his death he had over 600 publications and numerous awards from a number of prestigious physics and optics societies.
In 1988 he received the Einstein Prize for Laser Science, in 1990 he received the Charles Hard Townes Award,[2] in 1993 the Albert A. Michelson Medal[3] from the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and in 2003 the Frederic Ives Medal of The Optical Society.