14 December 2011 Prof. Dr Christoph Lienau, Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Oldenburg since 2006, has declined the offer of a professorship in nanophysics at the University of Münster. Lienau will continue his internationally acclaimed research work on ultrafast nano-optics in Oldenburg. "With Professor Lienau, the University will retain an internationally recognised and renowned scientist whose excellent work in the field of nanophysics is also of enormous importance for Oldenburg's energy research," explained University President Prof. Dr Babette Simon. Lienau has been offered an attractive position. This has created the conditions for the long-term and successful expansion of this pioneering field of research in Oldenburg. Prof Dr Martin Holthaus, Dean of School V - School of Mathematics and Science, described the physicist as a "top researcher with an extraordinarily high scientific profile". He said he was pleased that it had been possible to keep Lienau in Oldenburg despite the excellent offer from Münster in an almost exemplary co-ordination. Lienau, who is currently spending a research semester at the renowned Seoul National University (South Korea), studied physics in Göttingen, where he also gained his doctorate in 1992. He then worked for two years on a postdoctoral fellowship from the German Research Foundation (DFG) as a research fellow with Nobel Prize winner Prof Ahmed H. Zewail at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena (USA). In 1995, Lienau moved to the newly founded Max Born Institute (Berlin) in the department of Prof. Dr Thomas Elsässer, with whom he initiated joint research activities in the still new field of "ultrafast nanooptics". In 2003, the scientist habilitated at the Humboldt University of Berlin. He turned down calls to the universities of Kiel and Arkansas (USA). In Oldenburg, where he has been teaching and researching for five years, he heads the "Ultrafast Nano-Optics" working group. He has also been Director of the Institute of Physics since 2009. In his research, the experimental physicist combines methods of femtosecond laser spectroscopy and nano-optics in order to better understand, manipulate and optimise the optical properties of new nanomaterials. His work occupies a key position in the field of fundamental energy research. At the University of Oldenburg, this is being carried out by scientists from the Institute of Physics, the Institute of Pure and Applied Chemistry and the Institute of Mathematics on an interdisciplinary basis.