Alois Herkommer is full professor for optical design and simulation at the Institute for Applied Optics at the University of Stuttgart since 2011.  He received his PhD in physics in 1995 from the University of Ulm in the area of quantum optics. In 1996 he joined Carl Zeiss in Oberkochen and worked on the optical design of high performance lithographic and metrology systems in various positions until 2011. His main research interests are optical design of imaging, illumination and metrology systems, novel optical systems concepts, and additive optics fabrication.