TOPTICA Projects GmbH, a subsidiary of TOPTICA Photonics AG, has been founded in 2016. TOPTICA Projects focuses on customized laser solutions, innovation and technology development. This includes all activities related to the award-winning sodium guide star lasers used worldwide by several major astronomy facilities and recently selected for ESO’s next generation Extremely Large Telescope (ELT).
TOPTICA Projects has its facilities in the beautiful area of Gräfelfing (Munich). Its current staff of 20 people is responsible for design, development, manufacturing and support of our high-tech laser systems. This includes installations at our customer sites in Chile, Hawaii and on the Canary Islands.
In 2017 the TOPTICA team has received the OSA Forman Award for team technical achievements in optical engineering.
TOPTICA Photonics belongs to BAYERNS BEST 50 companies.
The Bavarian State Ministry of Economic Affairs, Regional Development, and Energy again honored 50 Bavarian companies that are particularly innovative, creative, and flexible – and have above-average growth.
TOPTICA Projects offers jobs in a broad range of technical as well as in non-technical areas.
To master the daily growing challenges and to convince in the global competition, we are looking for qualified and committed employees who want to shape the future with us.
We maintain a modern corporate culture characterized by flat hierarchies, open dialogue, fairness, and respectful cooperation. The working environment in our globally operating enterprise opens up first-class perspectives for the more than 300 employees to contribute to our success.
TOPTICA Projects is a start-up within the TOPTICA enterprise. We expect from our employees to share their ideas actively and be creative. We have a friendly working atmosphere and live an “open door” policy with short decision-making paths.
TOPTICA Projects is based in Graefelfing, a municipality in the district of Munich, about 10 km southwest of Munich city center. Munich offers a high quality of life, an excellent infrastructure and is close to the Alps.
Managing Director (CEO)
Managing Director
Managing Director (CTO)
Frank (CEO and Co-Founder) graduated in 1994 from the Leibniz University in Hannover and received a PhD in Physics from Bonn University. Frank started his professional career at Bayer AG and in 2002 moved to TOPTICA Photonics AG as VP of Research & Development. In 2009, he became CEO of TILL Photonics GmbH and when the company was bought by FEI Inc. in 2011, he stayed as managing director of FEI Munich GmbH. There he was responsible for the worldwide cell and tissue biology business of FEI until his leaving in
the beginning of 2014. Thereafter he has been working as an independent consultant in the Photonics Industry, focusing mainly on start-ups. Since October 2016 he is CEO of TOPTICA Projects GmbH.
Being infected by cold atom physics as a PhD student at the Institute of Quantum Optics in Hannover, and being part of the technology of Prof. Hänsch’s group at the Max Planck Institute in Garching, Wilhelm started a successful business activity with tunable diode laser technology. “Frequency Division” in the early days and “Frequency Combing” today, have started the Passion of Precision and are still the driving force in TOPTICA’s extended scientific product range on its way to mature markets. As cofounder of TOPTICA, he serves together with Dr. Thomas Renner and Dr. Thomas Weber as “Vorstand”.
Armin graduated in 1998 with a degree in bio-medical engineering and precision engineering from the University of Applied Sciences in Ulm. During his diploma thesis at the chair of Prof. Hänsch at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, he became enthusiastic about laser physics and thus joined TOPTICA Photonics, which was founded as a start-up company at that time. In the following years he worked in research and development of semiconductor lasers and ultrafast fiber lasers, where many products of TOPTICA Photonics AG originated. Subsequently, he headed the R&D department of TOPTICA in the field of fiber lasers and frequency comb technology. As a founder of TOPTICA Projects GmbH he has been the CTO of the company since October 2016.
TOPTICA Projects is a start up based in Germany in the beautiful area of Munich.
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