Prof. Dr. rer. nat. habil. Marc Eichhorn holds the Chair of Optronics (established in 2018) at the Intitute of Control Systems at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology. At the same time, he is Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Optronics, System Technology and Image Exploitation (IOSB) in Ettlingen, Germany, and Divisional Director Defense at Fraunhofer IOSB.
From 1999 to 2003 Prof. Eichhorn studied physics at the Ruprecht-Kalrs-University of Heidelberg, Germany. In 2005 he received his doctorate from the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg (Faculty of Mathematics and Physics) under the supervision of Prof. Joachim Wagner, in collaboration with the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics (IAF) in Freiburg, Germany, and the French-German Research Institute of Saint-Louis located in Saint-Louis, France. His doctoral thesis was entitled “Investigation of a diode-pumped fiber amplifier with emission at 2 µm".
Since 2008 he teaches laser physics at the Karlsruhe School of Optics and Photonics (KSOP) at KIT. In 2009 he completed his habilitation in the subject of experimental physics at the Department of Physics of the Faculty of Mathematics, Computer Science and Natural Sciences at the University of Hamburg, Germany, with the thesis entitled "Quasi-three-level solid-state lasers in the near and mid infrared based on trivalent rare-earth ions" and established the research group "Directed Photonics and Quantum Electronics" (DPE) at the ISL in 2010, of which he was head until 2013. Since 2012 he has also been teaching laser metrology as part of the KSOP of KIT. From 2013 to 2018 he was Head of Division III "Lasers and Electromagnetic Technologies" at the ISL.
The focus in research, teaching and innovation at the Chair of Optronics include the subject areas of photonic materials and components, laser sources and laser systems as well as laser metrology in the near, mid and far infrared focusing on the respective specific requirements in optronics.The Chair of Optronics and Fraunhofer IOSB work in close collaboration. In this way, synergy effects which lie in the more fundamental-research-oriented approach at the KIT and the application-oriented research at the IOSB can be optimally exploited. In addition, a close cooperation promotes the recruitment of first-class young scientists for the Fraunhofer IOSB.