Editorial board

Pere Roca i Cabarrocas

Biography - Prof. Pere Roca i Cabarrocas, is an Electrical Engineer from the “Universitat Politécnica de Barcelona”. In 1984 he moved to Paris, where he received his PhD from University Paris VII in 1988. After a post-doc position in Princeton University he joined the Laboratory of Physics of Interfaces and Thin Films at Ecole Polytechnique where he holds a position as a CNRS director of research and as a professor. From 2012 to 2020 he was the director of LPICM and of the French PV Federation. Since 2019 he is the scientific director of IPVF. He has thirty years of experience in the field of plasma deposition of silicon based thin films for large area electronic applications. His topics cover the study of RF discharges for the deposition of amorphous, polymorphous and microcrystalline silicon thin films. He has used in-situ diagnostic techniques such as UV-visible ellipsometry, Kelvin probe and time resolved microwave conductivity to understand the growth of these materials and apply them to the production of devices such as solar cells, thin film transistors, particle detectors, sensors, etc. More recently he has been applying silicon nanocrystals synthesized in the plasma as building blocks for the epitaxial growth of silicon thin films and Si/Ge quantum wells. On the other hand, he has extended the plasma processes to the growth of vertical silicon nanowires for third generation solar cells and of horizontal ones for planar electronic applications. He was the recipient of the Médaille Blondel in 2004, of the Innovation Award at Ecole Polytechnique in 2009 and the Silver medal from CNRS in 2011. Since 2016 he is invited professor at Nara Institute of Technology. He has published over 520 papers, holds 38 patents and has supervised 56 PhD students.

Keywords - Low Temperature Plasma Processes, Thin Films, In-situ Characterization, Photovoltaics

Jean-Louis Lazzari

Biography - Dr. Lazzari is a senior researcher at the Centre Interdisciplinaire de Nanoscience de Marseille (CINaM). He is a quantum- and device- physicist and very active in international events linked to Nanoscience, Nanotechnologies and Photovoltaics. He was either co-founder, chair, co-organiser or member of the scientific committees of many international conferences like the Photovoltaic Technical Conference (PVTC2010 - i-PVTC2018), EU PVSEC 2019 French PV Innovation Day, Edmond Becquerel Symposium 2020, Euro-Mediterranean Conferences on Materials & Renewable Energies (Biannual EMCMRE 1-6), Biannual Nanomeeting Conference and related FRONTIERS Workshops (NANOMEETING 2005-2019) or the International Conference in Nanosciences & Nanotechnologies (NN19-NN22).
Scientific production available on ORCID (0000-0002-3315-2663), Researchgate, and Web of Sciences.

Daniel Lincot

Biography - Dr. Lincot is now emeritus research director at the CNRS and was invited Professor 2021-2022 at the Collège de France.

Urs Aeberhard

Biography - Urs Aeberhard received his PhD in theoretical solid state physics from ETH Zürich (Switzerland) in 2008, for a thesis on a microscopic theory of quantum well solar cells, performed in the Condensed Matter Theory group at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). From 2009-2018, he was a postdoc, senior scientist, and group leader at the Institute of Energy and Climate Research – Photovoltaics (IEK-5), Forschungszentrum Jülich (Germany), heading the activities in Theory & Multiscale Simulation. In 2013, he was a visiting research scholar at the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden, Colorado. Since 2018, he performs applied research and model development as a senior R&D scientist at the company Fluxim based in Winterthur, Switzerland. Since 2019, he is also a Guest Lecturer for the simulation of photovoltaic devices at ETH Zürich. Dr. Aeberhard is the developer of pioneering quantum-mechanical simulation approaches for nanostructure-based solar cells and the author of numerous publications on this topic.

Keywords - Theory and simulation of solar cells (in general), Ultra-high efficiency/3rd gen. photovoltaic concepts (multi-junctions, hot carrier PV, MEG, IBSC,…), Nanostructure solar cells (ultra-thin absorbers, QW, QD, nanowire PV), Emerging PV materials (organic, perovskite, QD), Advanced characterization of solar cells, Stability & degradation analysis of solar cells based on emerging materials, Large area device and module simulation, Imaging analysis of large area devices and modules

Mohamed Amara

Biography -M. Amara is a CNRS researcher. He obtained his PhD in 2004 at the University of Limoges on the synthesis of Si/C/N nanopowders by laser pyrolysis. After postdoctoral of one year in UNSW (Sydney, Australia), he joined in 2008 the Centre for Energy and Thermal Sciences of Lyon and investigated the heat management in solar cells and modules. In 2018, he joined the Institute des Nanotechnologies de Lyon (INL), one of the most important French laboratories in the field of silicon-based-solar cells. Currently, M. Amara is conducting research on Multiphysics simulation of PV modules including tandem solar cells to enhance energy yield under real operating conditions.

Keywords - Physics of Solar cells, Energy yield, Thermal behavior of photovoltaic device, photonics, tandem cells, Multiphysics simulation

James P. Connolly

Biography - James P. Connolly holds a PhD in modelling quantum well solar cells from Imperial College, Blacket laboratory, in 1997, and a HDR in physics in 2018 from Université Paris-Sud (XI). His interests are the modelling of next generation photovoltaic devices in the major materials systems, and modelling experimental techniques such as KPFM. He has coordinated European projects in multiscale photovoltaic research and in novel tandem solar cell. He has worked at Imperial College, at Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, at the IPVF institute, and currently holds a post of research engineer at CentraleSupélec just outside Paris.

Keywords - Photovoltaics, novel devices, modelling, materials, thin film, tandem, multijunction, multiscale, characterisation

Veronica Bermudez

Biography - Dr. Verónica Bermúdez is a Senior Research Director at QEERI (Qatar Environment Research Institute, QEERI) where she is the Director of the Energy Center. She is leading scientific and technological research, development and innovation at QEERI in the field of Energy, while addressing the impact of climate change and developing sustainable development solutions in a Net-Zero Carbon emissions scenario.
Prior to joining the organization in 2018, she was Acting General Manager of the Technology Division of the Atsugi Research Center at Solar Frontier KK in Japan. She has also hold a position of Expert Engineer at EDF R&D, Senior Scientist at NEXCIS (start-up) and Head of the Optoelectronic Characterization Laboratory at IRDEP (EDF) in France, between others. She is in the Advisory Board of a number of entities and provides consultancy and high level strategic technology commercialization advice to global companies and small companies alike. The impact of her research has been acknowledged by the invitation to give plenary talks at different international events, as well as the reception of several prestigious awards, including the 2007 Schieber Prize, among others.
Dr. Bermúdez is an internationally recognized expert in clean and sustainable energy and in particular in photovoltaic materials and technologies. Her scientific work combines fundamental and applied research to sustainable processes and materials for solar photovoltaic, grid integration, hybrid power systems and power plant operations best practices, reliability, degradation and impact of weather conditions on conversion efficiency.

Keywords - Solar, photovoltaic materials, photovoltaic, grid integration, reliability, degradation, PV operations

Federica Cappelluti

Biography - Federica Cappelluti is associate professor of electronics at Politecnico di Torino. She received her PhD degree in Electronics and Communications Engineering from Politecnico di Torino in 2002. Her research interests include the circuit-level and physics-based modeling and simulation of semiconductor devices for energy and telecom. She has a long track record in international collaborations and research projects, also as PI. She has co-authored more than 100 publications in peer-reviewed international journals and international conferences and two book chapters. She has a consolidated experience as reviewer for several international journals (https://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/654674). Besides researching and teaching, since May 2018 she acts as the Rector’s advisor for Open Science. Besides researching and teaching, since May 2018 she acts as the Rector’s advisor for Open Science.

Keywords - nanostructures; quantum-dot; thin-film; light-trapping; radiative cooling; intermediate band; metamaterials; perovskite; dye-sensitized solar cells; tandem cells; simulation; optical and electromagnetic modeling; transport modeling; optical propteries; transport properties; thermal and electro-thermal modeling; circuits

Jean-François Guillemoles

Biography - JF Guillemoles is a CNRS Research Director, head of the IPVF joint lab (CNRS- E. Polytechnique- ENSCP-and SAS IPVF), Paris-Saclay (France) aiming at the development of photovoltaics, and former director of a joint lab with the University of Tokyo, NextPV. Scientifically active on high efficiency concepts for solar energy conversion, new applications for photovoltaic, luminescence-based characterization techniques (esp. Hyperspectral imaging), and modeling of photovoltaic materials and devices. Part time Professor at Ecole Polytechnique, author/co-author of more than 400 publications (peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, patents, proceedings …), editor for Progress in Photovoltaics (Wiley) and EPJPV (EDP), and director of several large R&D programs, such as PEPR TASE.
Scientific production available on ORCID (0000-0003-0114-8624), HAL, and Researchgate.

Jürgen Hüpkes

Biography - Jürgen Hüpkes studied Physcis and received 2005 his phd degree at RWTH Aachen, Germany.
He has worked as a postdoc at Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany and lead there a group on transparent contacts for photovoltaic applications. He contributed to about 100 papers on structure formation during sputter deposition, etching, light trapping, and degradation mechanisms of TCOs. Recently he changed the field to modeling of perovskite solar cells.

Keywords - TCO, Zink oxide, light trapping, perovskite solar cells

Arnulf Jäger-Waldau

Biography - Dr. Arnulf Jäger–Waldau is a Senior Expert and Senior Scientist at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in the Energy Efficiency and Renewables Unit, Directorate C: Energy, Transport and Climate. The assessment of renewable energy technologies, the effectiveness of their implementation, their integration into energy infrastructures and the role of renewable energy for climate change mitigation is part of his work portfolio since 2001.
Starting in 1987 he worked in the field of material research for solar cells and holds patents on semiconductor material deposition for thin film solar cells and solar module design.
He has more than 300 publications in peer reviewed journals and conference proceedings ranging from materials research for PV and solar cell development to market studies and policy evaluations for Renewable Energies. He is the author of the European Commission's annual "Photovoltaic Status Report".
From 2011 to 2014 he was the Technical Chairman of the European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference (EUPVSEC) and served as European Chair of the 6th World Conference on Photovoltaic Power Conversion in Kyoto, November 2014 as well as General Conference Chairperson of the E-MRS Spring Meeting in 2009 and 2013.
Dr. Jäger-Waldau was a Lead Author for Solar Energy of the Special Report of the IPCC on Renewable Energy and Climate Change Mitigation. He served as a reviewer of the Global Energy Assessment Report (GEA) published in 2012 and is a reviewer of various Assessment and Special Reports of IPCC and REN21 as well as the annual Renewable Energy Market Report of the International Energy Agency. He was a Review Editor of the Technical Summary for the IPCC Working Group III’s 6^th Assessment Report.
He served as a member of the International Advisory Board of the Warsaw University Photovoltaic Centre and member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Solar Research Centre of the Bulgarian Academy of Science. From 2005 to 2013 he was a member of the Executive Committee of the European Materials Research Society (E-MRS). He served as a member of the Academic Committee of the TRINA State Key Lab for Photovoltaic Technology (2010 to 2015) and Vice Chair of the Academic Committee of APVIA (2011 to 2014).
In 2022 he was presented the Special Lifetime Achievements Award of the World CleanTech Award - 2021 Edition. In 2021 he received the PVSEC (Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conversion Conference) Special Award and in 2019 the APVIA (Asia PV Industry Association) Award for Academic Contribution (individual category).

Jean-Paul Kleider

Biography - Jean-Paul Kleider is a CNRS research director, head of the Materials department at GeePs (Laboratoire de Génie électrique et électronique de Paris). He is director of FedPV, the French CNRS Federation of Photovoltaics, and he coleads the characterisation, reliability, and modelling program at IPVF. He graduated from the SUPELEC school of engineering in 1984 and obtained his PhD in physics at the University Pierre et Marie Curie in 1987. His main research interests are in the electrical and optoelectronic characterization of semiconductor materials and in device physics including theoretical analysis and numerical modelling. He has co-authored more than 320 publications (peer-reviewed papers, book chapters, patents, proceedings), and has been leading several R&D projects.
Scientific production available on ORCID (0000-0003-4388-6326), HAL, and Researchgate

Keywords - Transport properties, advanced electrical and optoelectronic characterization, physics and modelling of solar cell devices

Alison Lennon

Biography - Alison Lennon is currently Chief Scientist at Sundrive Solar Pty Ltd in Sydney, Australia and a Professor of Engineering at UNSW. She has PhDs in Science (University of Sydney) and Photovoltaic Engineering (UNSW) and has published more than 200 scientific papers in the areas of silicon photovoltaics, energy storage and sustainability. Her current interests are focused on sustainable metallisation for silicon photovoltaics.

Keywords - Silicon photovoltaics, metallisation, copper plating, silicon heterojunction cells, module design, optical modelling

Yoshitaka Okada

Biography - Prof. Yoshitaka Okada is a Professor at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST) of the University of Tokyo. He received his BSc. in electronic and electrical engineering from King’s College, the University of London in 1984, and MEng. and Ph.D. degrees in electronic engineering from the University of Tokyo in 1987 and 1990. He was appointed as Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University in 1995-96, Visiting Fellow in the Department of Physics, Imperial College London in 2006, and Visiting Fellow of Cavendish Laboratory of the University of Cambridge in 2015. He has authored over 220 journal papers and 200 international conference presentations.

Keywords - Thin-film growth of low-dimensional quantum nanostructures for applications to advanced high-efficiency photovoltaics such as III-V compound multijunction, intermediate-band, and hot-carrier solar cells

Philip Schulz

Biography - Philip Schulz is a CNRS Research Director at the Institut Photovoltaïque d’Île-de-France (IPVF), where he coleads the characterization, reliability and modeling program, and serves as the head of the Interfaces and Hybrid Materials group whose creation was supported by an Investigator Grant in the “Make Our Planet Great Again” initiative of the French president. His research interests are the development and characterization of new materials and device architectures for energy applications with a focus on interface science. With his background in organic electronic he has pioneered the use of advanced spectroscopic methods for the analysis of interfaces in perovskite solar cell technologies from fundamental research to the application.
Before entering CNRS in 2017, Philip Schulz worked on interface design for organic and hybrid electronics as a postdoctoral researcher in the USA at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) from 2014 to 2017 and Princeton University from 2012 to 2014. He holds a PhD in physics from RWTH Aachen University in Germany (2012).

Keywords - Perovskite solar cells, organic photovoltaics, advanced characterization, materials science

Alessandra Scognamiglio

Biography - Dr. Scognamiglio is a licensed architect, holding a master’s degree in architecture in “Preservation of Architectural Assets” from the University of Naples, with a PhD in “Technologies for Architecture and Environment” from the University of Campania. Since 2000 she is a researcher at the Renewable Energy Technology department of ENEA (Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development) in the photovoltaics and smart networks division. Her main interest lies in the interface between scientific research and design, where she engages in creating a domain of common understanding and experimentations in the real living environment.
After having been appointed by ENEA as coordinator of the task force on “Sustainable Agrivoltaics”, she acts as the coordinator of the Italian Network for Sustainable Agrivoltaics, a national network of stakeholders from photovoltaics, agriculture, landscape design and environmental organisations. Recently she has been appointed as the president of the Italian Association for Sustainable Agrivoltaics (AIAS).
She has been the general chair of the 8^th World Conference of Photovoltaic Energy Conversion (WCPEC).
She has been managing several projects related to innovative BIPV and photovoltaics in landscape; including innovative agrivoltaics, and Net Zero Energy Buildings. Her main interest is in the architectural design of the interface that lies between the physical requirements of photovoltaic energy generation systems and the landscapes - considered physically, culturally and ecologically - where such systems are to be located.
She is also the creator and chairperson of the event “Photovoltaics, Forms, Landscapes. Beauty and power of designed photovoltaics”, taking place since 2010.
On an international level, she served as the Italian alternate in the Executive Committee of the IEA SHC (Solar Heating and Cooling), and she is also member of the “Integrated PV” task of ETIP (European Technology and Innovation Platform). She maintains her dedication to architecture as a member of the advisory board of the Master in Architecture at the University of Campania.
She continues to lecture and give supervision to postgraduate masters and holds as well training courses for professionals (engineers and architects), organised by national design and architecture associations, professional associations, universities, and by ENEA itself. She authored more than 100 publications in journals, proceedings and books.
She holds two patents on the use of photovoltaics in buildings and landscapes (Boogie-Woogie photovoltaic glass, and PV-LED street lamp Stapelia), and on the trade marks “Algovoltaico” resp. “Algaevoltaics.” She is also president of the Italian Association for Sustainable Agrivoltaics (AIAS).

Ayodhya N. Tiwari

Biography - Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Ayodhya N. Tiwari, Laboratory for Thin Films and Photovoltaics, Empa-Swiss Federal Laboratories for Material Science and Technology. He has experience in thin film solar cells based on chalcogenides, perovskites and tandem solar cells.

Keywords - Thin film solar cells based on chalcogenides, perovskites and tandem solar cells

Ioannis Tsanakas

Biography - Dr Ioannis Tsanakas is R&D Project Manager/Scientist at CEA-INES (France), in charge of projects on O&M, performance and reliability of PV systems and their applications. He holds a PhD in Management and Production Engineering (2013) and MSc in Electrical and Computer Engineering (2006). Awarded by the EU in 2017, among Europe's 30 exemplary MSCA researchers. Prior to CEA, he also worked as PV Research Engineer in Belgium (imec/EnergyVille), Norway (IFE) and France (CNRS).
In parallel, he is actively involved as PV expert, in international collaborative platforms for the PV research and industry (International Energy Agency (IEA) PVPS programme, European Technology & Innovation Platform (ETIP PV), Solar Power Europe O&M, EU-JRC Ecodesign). Over the last 14 years, he has been involved in >20 national and international R&D projects (~30 M€), with a scientific production of 1 international patent and more than 60 publications, talks or technical reports in the field.

Keywords - Photovoltaic (PV) systems; PV Fault diagnostics; PV reliability; PV field inspections; PV Operations and Maintenance; PV applications (floating PV, agrivoltaics/AgriPV, building-integrated PV (BIPV)); second-life PV (recycling or re-use)

Guillaume Wantz

Biography - Guillaume Wantz graduated from the School of Chemistry and Physics of Bordeaux (ENSCPB) in 2001 including a thesis work at Philips Research (Eindhoven, NL) on ink-jet printing. He received his Ph.D. in Electronics Engineering from the University of Bordeaux in 2004 working on Polymer Light Emitting Diodes. He was Assistant Professor at the University of Bordeaux working on Organic Field Effect Transistors with research stays at Queen’s University (Kingston, Canada). In 2006, he was appointed as tenure Associate Professor at the Bordeaux Institute of Technology (Bordeaux INP). He is Professeur des Universités since 2021. His research interest is on Organic Electronics with a focus on polymer photovoltaic solar cells (OPV). He was invited-professor at Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario, Canada) in Spring 2012 and at Univ. of Massachusetts (Amherst, USA) in Fall 2014. He is leading the French CNRS network in Organic and Hybrid Solar Photovoltaic (NANORGASOL) since 2015. He has been appointed at the “Institut Universitaire de France” (IUF Paris) in 2016. Since 2017, he is Associate Editor for the journal “Materials Chemistry Frontiers” (RSC). He is co-founder of Héole, a company developing flexible OPV products including solar-powered sails for yachting, a solar zeppelin and some BIPV flexible OPV products. To date, he has published 130 research papers in peer-reviewed international journals and issued 8 patents (h = 38 – 6000 citations – source Google Scholar).
He is also Member of Institut Universitaire de France (IUF) and Head of CNRS network on Organic and Hybrid Photovoltaic.

Keywords - Polymer Solar Cells, Organic Photovoltaic (OPV)