Manuel Hegelish

About

Björn Manuel Hegelich (often referred to as Manuel Hegelich) is a German-American physicist and entrepreneur renowned as the founder and CEO of TAU Systems, an Austin-based deep-tech company established in 2021 that develops compact laser-plasma particle accelerators and X-ray free-electron lasers to democratize access to high-energy beams for industries like semiconductors, biotechnology, materials science, and space radiation testing. A professor of physics at the University of Texas at Austin with prior leadership in laser-acceleration research at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Hegelich pioneered breakthroughs including 10 GeV electron beams over mere centimeters, holding multiple world records in laser-driven acceleration. His work, spun out from UT Austin with over $35M in funding, aims to shrink mile-long accelerators to room-sized systems for widespread commercial and research applications.