Native of Berlin / Germany, Rolf Gotthardt was born in 1941. He studied physics at the Universities of Berlin and Stuttgart where he graduated in 1967. From 1968 to 1973, he worked as an assistant at the Max Planck Institut für Metallforschung in Stuttgart. In 1973, he joined the Institut de Génie Atomique (IGA) at the Physics Department of the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) as a first assistant. Two years later he was nominated as "Chargé de cours" (Lecturer) teaching Electron Microscopy. Between 1979 and 1980, he left Switzerland to join the Institute for Scientific and Industrial Research at Osaka University (Japan) as a guest researcher. Back to IGA, he was promoted to the position of "Adjoint scientifique" (Associate Scientist) in 1982, and he set up a small group of postdoctoral collaborators and PhD students specialized in Martensitic Phase Transformations in shape-memory alloys (SMA). He enlarged his research spectrum by the addition of theoretical and experimental investigations on high energy ion implantation. He is presently teaching a basic course in "Mechanics" for german speaking students.
Rolf Gotthardt is participating in several national (FN, CERS) and international (BRITE-EURAM) research programs. His research interests are focussed on: Phase formation and transformation induced by high energy ion implantation (Formation and Nucleation of nano-amorphous zones in aluminum by Nickel ions. Diffusionless Phase Transformations (Martensitic Transformations in shape-memory alloys, Critical thickness for transformation in thin films). Functional materials based on polymers with embedded SMA wires. Introduction of SMAs in microsystems and microtechnology. Rolf Gotthardt is member of the international advisory committee for ICOMAT (International Conference on Martensitic Transformations) and ESOMAT (European Symposium on Martensitic Transformations). He was chairman of the ICOMAT'95 held at Lausanne / Switzerland.