Manfred Weihnacht was born in Leipzig, in 1940. He received his diploma, Ph.D., and Dr. habil. degree in physics from the Dresden University of Technology. He worked as a head of laboratory on superconducting thin films and tunneling structures for applications in low temperature electronics in industrial research (Kombinat Robotron Dresden) and at the University of Jena, Germany. After that he joined the research institution ZFW of the Academy of Sciences preceding the today’s Leibniz Institute of Solid State and Materials Research (IFW) in Dresden. He was assigned to establish a research group and start work on piezoelectric materials and surface acoustic waves and their application in devices. His activities covered the fundamentals of crystal acoustics, SAW device modelling, measurement techniques, and the development of new materials, spanning all kinds of constitution from thin and thick films, ceramics to single crystals. The work of the department under his direction has a long history of worldwide collaboration on SAW devices and related materials research with partners especially in industry. In later time, also innovations of combined use of microacoustics and microfluidics for biology and medicine were in special focus of his joint work with a young scientists group in IFW Dresden. In 2005 he founded his own consulting company INNOXACS – Innovations in Crystal Acoustics – Dr. Manfred Weihnacht, offering research services to industrial companies and scientific institutions.
Since 1990 he has published more than 220 scientific contributions to journals and conferences with over 2000 citations. He helds more than 30 patents.
Dr. M. Weihnacht is member of the German Physical Society and Life Senior Member of IEEE. 2006-2008 he was an Elected Member of the Administrative Committee of the UFFC Society of IEEE and from 2008 until 2017 the Society Representative to IEEE Biometrics Council.
In 2012 he was the General Chair of the IEEE International Ultrasonics Symposium in Dresden, Germany.