Peter E Toschek studied at the University of Göttingen, and earned his doctoral degree in 1961 from the University of Bonn. In 1963, he founded the first German research group in Germany at the University of Heidleberg. There, he became professor in 1972. In 1981, he moved to the University of Hamburg, where he founded the Institute for Laser Physics and worked until his retirement in 1998.

Toschek was a Fellow of OSA, and he received the 2015 Herbert Walther Award “For his pioneering experiments to laser cooling and trapping of single ions, his contributions to the understanding of principles of laser spectroscopy as well as of atomic physics.”

Toscheck passed away in 2020.