Prof. Khaled Karrai studied Physics and Engineering at the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) in Toulouse, France. In 1984 he received his engineering degree from INSA and his diploma in physics from Université Paul Sabatier. From 1984 to 1987 he had a research period at the High Magnetic field laboratory of the Centre National de la recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and Max Planck in Grenoble. Karrai was awarded his Ph.D. in physics at Université Joseph-Fourier in 1987. The next five years he worked as a research associate and an assistant research scientist at the department of physics and astronomy of the University of Maryland, USA. He came to TUM in 1993 as a Humboldt research fellow (group of Prof. G. Abstreiter and Prof. F. Koch). From 1995 to 2006 Karrai was part of the Physics department at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich as a Professor in Experimental Semiconductor Physics. In addition, in December 2001 he co-founded AttoCube Systems AG, manufacturing cryogenic scanning probe microscopes. Since 2007 Karrai is Chief Technical Officer and R&D head of AttoCube Systems AG.

The following topics represent the core of Karrai’s research: Solid state physics – semiconductors, quantum properties, optoelectronics; Optical and mechanical properties of nanoscale systems; Methods in scanning probe microscopy and confocal spectroscopy.