Gerhard Franz earned his master degree in physical chemistry from Philipps University, Marburg, Germany, in 1977, and the Ph.D. degree, with a thesis on the thermodynamical and conductivity aspects of the fluid alkali metals rubidium and cesium up to their critical point, from Philipps University, in 1980. In 1981, he joined the Analytical Department, Siemens Research Laboratories, Munich, Germany, and after five years, he moved to the Photonics Department, Siemens Research Laboratories, where he became responsible for the development of plasma-based processes in 1992, in particular reactive ion etching (RIE) and plasma diagnostics. In 2002, he joined Munich University of Applied Sciences, Munich, where he has been professor for applied physics until 2019.

His educational interests are focused on the education of graduate students in the master course "micro- and nanotechnology", where he has taught the entrance course for more than 15 years which has become the basis of these textbooks. In 2005, he founded the Center for Nanostructure Technology together with some colleagues from Technical University of Munich, Munich. Soon, chemical vapor deposition of the organic compound poly-
p
-xylylene arouse his interest and became the second center of his research.

Gerhard Franz has authored four books on low-temperature plasma physics and microstructuring technology, delivered more than 70 external lectures and has written more than 60 peer-reviewed papers. Topics are mainly RIE of III/V semiconductors, photonic devices which were fabricated with this technology, plasma diagnostics, and chemical vapor deposition.