Lindau was awarded his PhD in 1971 at Chalmers University of Technology with his dissertation about photoemission and optical absorption studies of the band structure.
[1] After the dissertation, he began working at the Silicon Valley–based company Varian Associates in Palo Alto between 1971 and 1972 before he was employed at Stanford University in 1972.
[2] During his professorships he took a sabbatical at Lund University between 1988 and 1989, where he worked at MAX Lab to expand its research facility.
After his sabbatical ended he return to Lund University to become a professor for his research in synchrotron light physics.
[5] His research has focused on studies of electronic properties of semiconductor surfaces and their boundary layers using synchrotron light.