Dr. Richard Swanson, founder and President Emeritus of SunPower Corporation.
“From academia to the world most powerful commercial silicon solar cells: history, lesson learned and perspectives”
Richard "Dick" Swanson received his BSEE and MSEE from Ohio State University in 1969 and his PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University in 1975. After completing his PhD, he joined the Electrical Engineering faculty at Stanford. In 1975 he received grants for his solar energy research from the Electric Power Research Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy. His research investigated the semiconductor properties of silicon relevant for better understanding the operation of silicon solar cells. These studies have helped pave the way for steady improvement in silicon solar cell performance. In 1985 he founded SunPower Corporation. In 1991 Dr. Swanson resigned from his faculty position to devote full time to SunPower Corporation, where he served as its President and Chief Technology Officer until May 2010, when he became President Emeritus. SunPower produces today the highest performance commercial flat-plate photovoltaic panels.
Dr. Swanson has received widespread recognition for his work. Among others, in 2002, he was awarded the William R. Cherry award by the IEEE for outstanding contributions to the photovoltaic field, and in 2006 the Becquerel Prize in Photovoltaics from the European Communities.
Prof. Hui Shen, Director of the Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China
"Recent progresses in silicon photovoltaics research in China: from academia to industry"
Hui Shen studied optical engineering at the Nanjing University of Technology (1978 -1982). His research activities started with new materials, such as thin films and nanomaterials at the Institute of Solid State Physics, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) in Hefei (1982 -1992). From 1992 to 1996 he was a visiting scholar at the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Materials in Bremen and also a PhD candidate at the Dresden University of Technology, Germany. He obtained his Dr.-Ing. in 1996. In 1998, he became associate Professor at South China University of Technology in Guangzhou. In 1999, he obtained a project named “The Program of Hundred Talents” of CAS and became a Professor at Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion, CAS. Since then, his main research focuses on solar photovoltaic technology.
Since 2004, he is a Professor, founder and director of the Institute for Solar Energy Systems, Sun Yat-sen University (SYSU) in Guangzhou, since 2010, director of SYSU-Shunde Institute for Solar Energy. Since 2010 he is also chairman of the Academic Commission of State Key Lab of Photovoltaic Sci. and Tech (Trina Solar) and since 2012, chairman of the Technical Commission of State Center of Engineering and Technological Research (the 48th institute in Changsha).
Dr. Anna Battaglia, Research and Development Process Manager, ENEL, Italy
“Heterojunction technology, a new opportunity for PV manufacturing in Europe“
Anna Battaglia has a PhD in Physics and is working on materials modification induced by ion implantation. She has more than 20 years of experience in the Semiconductor Industries having worked for equipment manufacturing companies such as Lam Research Corporation, Applied Materials and Novellus Systems and covering the technology management role for all the products' applications. In 2011 she joined the PV technology 'arena' working on industrial research on thin film silicon photovoltaic. She is the coordinator of H2020 LC£09 AMPERE project. She is author of several articles and patents in the field of semiconductor technology and PV.