Press Release

Prof. Dr. Holger Kapels is new deputy director of Fraunhofer ISIT

Fraunhofer ISIT has a new deputy director. Prof. Dr. Holger Kapels succeeds Prof. Dr. Bernhard Wagner in this position, who retired at the end of last year.

Prof. Dr. Holger Kapels

Prof. Kapels has already been working at Fraunhofer ISIT since 2014. In recent years, he has been head of the Power Electronics Business Unit, a position he will continue to hold. During this time, he has strategically realigned his business area, established numerous future topics and gained experience that will also help him in his new task.

 

"We have started to introduce the new material gallium nitride, with great potential for further miniaturization and efficiency improvement of power devices, in addition to silicon. This process is not yet complete and we still have a lot to do here," Kapels said.

 

In recent years, the Power Electronics Business Unit has been particularly successful in developing and implementing system projects, such as in the North German joint project NEW 4.0 (Norddeutsche Energiewende 4.0) with more than 60 partners from science and industry and with the goal of successfully mastering the energy transition. In this project, the research groups of the ISIT business unit have further developed technologies and materials for power electronics as well as for battery technology in order to then successfully integrate them into systems.

Holger Kapels brings a wide range of experience from industry to his new role as deputy director of the institute. He has worked for several years at various industrial companies in the field of research and development, most recently as head of a development department.

In addition to his activities at Fraunhofer ISIT, Holger Kapels is also a professor for semiconductor components of power electronics at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, a good complement, because he can inspire his students with cutting-edge developments and train new scientific personnel in a competent and qualified manner.

Prof. Holger Kapels is looking forward to his new task:

"At ISIT, I particularly appreciate the many dedicated and highly-qualified colleagues as well as the excellent infrastructure. We are thus well equipped to meet the high demands of industry on our development work and we can also initiate development impulses from our side."