In an interview with the business magazine Focus Money, Haensch disclosed that he has received offers from unnamed U.S. institutions as he approaches his 65th birthday, the official retirement age for German professors.

Since receiving the 2005 Nobel Prize award for his research into optics in the 1990s, Haensch, who is also, the director of the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics has received many an offer, he revealed.

Considered civil servants, professors in Germany usually retire automatically at age 65, but some are given the option of postponing an end to their university career until they turn 68.

Under new rules approved by Bavaria’s state government this week, academics can also work as private contractors for the universities in the state even after they retire.

Still, Haensch’s comments have sparked fears that the famed professor could become a poster child for "brain drain," the migration of well-qualified Germans to work abroad.

Such a move wouldn’t be the first Haensch has undertaken during his career.

The professor spent 16 years researching at Stanford University, returning Germany in 1986 after being offered his present positions. He shared the 2005 Nobel Prize for Physics with colleagues from the United States.

But despite his close ties with the U.S. research community, Haensch has lauded Munich as a research location, saying that the university’s research teams, good projects, and well-equipped laboratories made it quite attractive to him.

The physical act of moving is also a hindrance to his research. "You really go lame for about two years," Haensch said about international lab-hopping.

But by the end of the week, Haensch had pledged to stay in Germany. But he hopes that "this dumb age limit will be abolished soon."