Ajeet Rohatgi, Ph.D. - Founder, CTO

Dr. Rohatgi received the B. S. (E. E.) degree from Indian Institute of Technology in 1971, the M. S. (Materials Engineering) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in 1973, and the Ph.D. in Metallurgy and Materials Science from Lehigh University in 1977.
He joined the Westinghouse Research and Development Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1977 and became a Westinghouse Fellow while working on the science and technology of photovoltaic and microelectronic devices.

Dr. Rohatgi joined the ECE faculty at Georgia Tech in 1985 and started a program on photovoltaics, which has become one of the best in the country. He has become an internationally recognized leader in photovoltaics. He is the founding director of the first university-based DOE Center of Excellence in Photovoltaic Research and Education . He is the author of more than 300 publications and holds 10 U.S. patents. Dr. Rohatgi has received numerous awards and distinctions from professional societies and Georgia Tech.

Please click for Dr. Rohatgi's complete CV.

Selected Papers:

HIGH-EFFICIENCY (19%) SCREEN-PRINTED TEXTURED CELLS ON LOW-RESISTIVITY FLOAT-ZONE SILICON WITH HIGH SHEET-RESISTANCE EMITTERS

Daniel L. Meier, Ph.D. -Vice President of Research and Development

Dan joins Suniva from the technical staff of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), where he worked on advanced cell designs involving amorphous silicon/crystalline silicon heterojunctions and on issues related to the production of silicon feedstock by novel processes.

Prior to NREL, Dan served as V.P. of Engineering from 2003 to 2006 with Solar Power Industries.  His staff produced 265 kg multicrystalline ingots by the directional solidification technique, 156 mm square wafers from the ingots, and developed processes for fabricating multicrystalline cells from these wafers.  Cell production was 3.5 MW in 2005.  Before SPI, Dan became Chief Scientist for EBARA Solar, a start-up company in 1994.   There he was responsible for the development of dendritic web silicon ribbon crystal growth and cell fabrication in a pilot-scale facility.  His team stabilized the growth of dendritic web crystals by introducing a magnetic field to allow the production of long crystals (typically 10 m) and developed a unique cell structure based on an aluminum alloy back p-n junction.  Modules were made for successful demonstration projects up to 19 kW in size.

Dan began his career in photovoltaics at the Westinghouse R&D Center in 1980 where he worked on the design, fabrication, and characterization of silicon solar cells from thin (100 micron) dendritic web ribbon crystals.  He also participated in the fabrication and testing of superconductive components for low-loss microwave applications and superconductive digital integrated circuits.  He left Westinghouse in 1994 with the ranking of  Fellow Scientist.

Dan holds a B.S. from St. Vincent College and an M.S. and Ph.D. from Carnegie-Mellon University, all in physics.  He has published over 75 technical papers in conference proceedings and archival journals and holds 11 US patents.   He was the recipient of three Westinghouse Signature Awards for excellence in engineering.

Selected Papers:
DETERMINATION OF SURFACE RECOMBINATION VELOCITIES FOR THERMAL OXIDE AND AMORPHOUS SILICON ON FLOAT ZONE SILICON

THE EFFECT OF DOPING DENSITY AND INJECTION LEVEL ON MINORITY -CARRIER LIFETIME AS APPLIED TO BIFACIAL DENDRITIC WEB SILICON SOLAR CELLS

SELF-DOPING CONTACTS TO SILICON USING SILVER COATED WITH A DOPANT SOURCE

ALUMINUM ALLOY BACK P-N JUNCTION DENDRITIC WEB SILICON SOLAR CELL

BACK SURFACE FIELD EFFECTS IN THE 17.3% EFFICIENT N-TYPE DENDRITIC WEB

SILICON SOLAR CELLS

Ben M. Damiani, Ph.D. - Senior Engineer

Ben received his BSEE, MSEE, and Ph.D. in EE from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a focus on Photovoltaics.  During his graduate school he concentrated on studying Light Induced Degradation and developing rapid low cost manufacturable solar cell processes.  Ben also spent 6 months as a guest Scientist at the Fraunhofer ISE group in Freiburg, Germany in 1998.

In 2004-2007 Ben worked in the LTD organization at Intel Corporation developing next generation IC's.  His group was responsible for the successful development and ramp of the 65nm and 45nm node.  Along with next generation chip development he was responsible for advanced process control methods for high volume manufacturing (HVM). 

Ben also received experience working in the photovoltaics industry from seed crystal to completed module.  His main job function was process characterization and optimization.  He is the author of 14 papers on photovoltaics.

Selected Papers:
LIGHT INDUCED DEGRADATION IN PROMISING MULTI-CRYSTALLINE
SILICON MATERIALS FOR SOLAR CELL FABRICATION

Adam M. Payne, Ph.D - Senior Scientist

Adam received his B.S. from Yale University in applied physics in 1991. He spent a year at the University of Cambridge, where he read for an M.Phil. in microelectronic engineering and semiconductor physics. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. from Princeton University in electrical engineering. The work for his doctoral thesis included research on amorphous silicon-germanium alloys for solar cells, as well as using dicholorosilane as an alternative source gas for a-Si:H. While affiliated with the Princeton Environmental Institute he worked on estimated long-term costs of solar cells as well as on an analysis of net metering’s impact on photovoltaics. In 1998-1999 he had an STA International Research Fellowship to spend a postdoctoral year at the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan working on plasma enhanced CVD of a-Si:H. From 1999-2002, Adam was at Aegis Semiconductor, a start-up company which produced a tunable thin film filter for the optical communications market. In 2003 he joined Georgia Tech as a research scientist working on GaN-based light emitting diodes.  He has published 10 papers on photovoltaics and holds 4 U.S. patents.

Vinodh Chandrasekaran, M.S. - Engineer

Vinodh joins Suniva from Solar Power Industries where he worked on manufacture of multi-crystalline silicon solar cells. His main focus was on process development and optimization along with diagnosis and characterization. Prior to becoming a cell processing engineer, Vinodh was responsible for bringing the wire saw process into production of wafers from ingots cast in-house at SPI. He was also involved in crystal growth for a short period of time.

Vinodh received his MSEE from the University of South Florida specializing in thin film photovoltaics.  His thesis was on improving performance and development of manufacture-friendly processes for thin film CIGS solar cells. He received his B.E. in Electronics and Communication Engineering from the University of Madras, India.

Selected Papers:
DETERMINING COMPONENTS OF SERIES RESISTANCE FROM MEASUREMENTS
ON A FINISHED CELL