Director

PD Dr. Christian Schmelzer has been acting Director of the Fraunhofer IMWS since May 1, 2025. In parallel to this activity, he continues to lead the "Biological and Macromolecular Materials" business unit, which he has headed since August 2018.

His research focuses on future materials for the healthcare sector. These include the development of biomimetic materials for medical applications and tissue engineering, the microstructural and molecular characterization of biological and biomaterials, issues relating to the formation, function and damage of extracellular fibre proteins as well as matrix-degrading proteases and matrikines.

Schmelzer studied physical engineering and information processing in Merseburg and Gdansk. After completing his doctorate on the topic of "Mass spectrometric characterization of protein hydrolysates" in 2007 at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), he worked there until 2016 as a research associate and head of the "Elastin" team at the Institute of Pharmacy, Faculty of Natural Sciences I (Biosciences), interrupted by a postdoctoral research stay at the Department of Biology at the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa. In 2021, he completed his habilitation on "Elastin - Formation and Fate" at MLU.

Schmelzer joined the Fraunhofer IMWS in 2016, initially as head of the "SkinNext" group, from whose research activities "matrihealth GmbH" emerged as a spin-off of the institute in 2022; at the beginning of 2018 he became Deputy Head of the Business Unit. He is author of more than 80 publications in scientific peer-reviewed journals and has been a lecturer at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg since 2009. His work has been recognized with the IQ Innovation Award of the City of Halle (2021) and second place in the Hugo Junkers Prize of the State of Saxony-Anhalt (2021), among others.

Frank Altmann has headed the "Electronic Materials and Components" business unit at Fraunhofer IMWS since 2019 and has been deputy director of the institute since June 2025. Since joining the institute as a research scientist in 1997, he has played a decisive role in building up expertise in the field of process characterization and physical failure diagnostics in microelectronics and power electronics.

Frank Altmann's scientific work is aimed not only at understanding process-related defect mechanisms and the degradation behavior of electronic components, but also at the further development of failure analysis techniques - an area in which the institute has been established for decades as a competent and reliable partner for the electronics industry, including manufacturers of analysis equipment.

The graduate physicist began his professional career as a research scientist and built up the "Diagnostics of Semiconductor Technologies" group at the Fraunhofer IMWS from 2006. Since 2019, he has headed the "Electronic Materials and Components" business unit. At the same time, he has been a lecturer at Merseburg University of Applied Sciences on the "Mechatronics, Industrial Engineering, Physical Technology" Master's degree course since 2007.

Under his leadership, the field of failure diagnostics at the Fraunhofer IMWS has become an internationally recognized reference. This is reflected not only in numerous scientific publications and conference papers, but also in awards such as the Best Paper Award of the Electronic Components Technology Conference (ECTC) in 2012, Best Paper Awards of the European Symposium on Reliability of Electronic Devices, Failure Physics and Analysis (ESREF) in 2014 and 2016 and the Hugo-Junkers-Award of the state of Saxony-Anhalt for "Failure detection in highly integrated microelectronic systems using lock-in thermography" together with the Max-Planck-Institute of Microstructure Physics in Halle (Saale).

Altmann is also heavily involved in the international scientific community. He was General Chair of the International Symposium for Testing and Failure Analysis (ISTFA) in 2023, is a regular member of the ESREF Program Committee and chairs the international CAM workshop "Failure Analysis and Material Diagnostics of Electronics Components" organized at the Fraunhofer IMWS. He is also the spokesman for the "Quality and Reliability of Integrated Circuits" technical committee in the Micro- and Nanoelectronics Division of the Information Technology Society (ITG) of the Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (VDE).

Prof. Thomas Höche has served as Deputy Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Microstructure of Materials and Systems IMWS since June 2025. A native of Halle (Saale), Germany, he studied physics at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. His subsequent career included positions at the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in Stuttgart, the Otto Schott Institute of Materials Research at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, the Chair of Crystallography at the Institute of Physics of Humboldt University of Berlin, and the Leibniz Institute of Surface Engineering (IOM) in Leipzig. Alongside his work at IOM, he was employed by 3D-Micromac AG in Chemnitz, where he was responsible, among other things, for intellectual property management and strategic business development. In 2005, he completed his habilitation at Leipzig University. In 2008, he was appointed Adjunct Professor of Experimental Physics at Leipzig University, where he currently heads the Department of Optical Materials at the Felix Bloch Institute for Solid State Physics.

Prof. Höche has been with Fraunhofer IMWS since 2010 and has led the business unit “Optical Materials and Technologies” since 2019.

His research focuses on the nanostructure of inorganic materials, particularly glass-ceramics and optical thin films, investigated using advanced microstructural characterization techniques. Building on this expertise, he develops inorganic and hybrid optical materials based on correlations between microstructure and material properties. His work also includes the commercialization of innovative laser and ion beam technologies.

Prof. Höche has published more than 230 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and holds approximately 70 patents and patent applications. His honors include the Max von Laue Award of the German Crystallographic Society (2006), the TÜV SÜD Innovation Award (2018), the Hugo Junkers Award of the State of Saxony-Anhalt (First Prize in the “Applied Research” category, 2018), and the Silver IQ Innovation Award Central Germany 2023.