HIGHLIGHTS
• 11+ years of experience in thin film process development, scale up & manufacturing.
• Hands on experience on sputtering, evaporation, annealing & metrology tools such as SEM, EDX, XRD, XRF, and SIMS.
• Skilled in designing and building experimental setups and data analysis.
• Received outstanding achievement award at Daystar Technologies. Awarded graduate fellowship at University of Central Florida.
• Proven track record of technical competence with 10+ patents and publications
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Sr Research Scientist Albany, NY College of Nanoscale Science & Engineering 09/2012-Present
Responsibilities and Accomplishments:
• Senior technical staff responsible for managing thin film solar cell and module process and product development.
• Achieved the efficiency goal set for R&D project with the current highest efficiency of 19%.
• Scale-up & transfer of PVD processes for thin film solar cells. Completed qualification of sputtering processes in new production line and ramped up in 4 months while achieving high level of quality, uniformity & yield to integrate in CIGS manufacturing line.
• Improved the sputtering processes of front Mo, TCO and backside Mo for cell performance for CIGS thin film pilot manufacturing line, improved absolute efficiency right from scratch to 10%
• Developed TCO & solar cell interconnect structure for solar cell with improved reliability and durability of thin film solar panel
Sr Thin Film Process Engineer San Jose, CA
Solopower Inc. 01/2012-08/2012
Responsibilities and Accomplishments:
• Senior technical staff responsible for developing R&D scale thin film processes and production scale PVD processes for thin film solar manufacturing.
• Transferred R&D scale deposition processes to production tool for coating thin films on large area substrates. Improved thin film coating uniformity to +/- 2%.
• Developed new barrier films to avoid Fe contamination from the SS substrate without affecting the contact resistance and adhesion of the back contact stack.
• Developed new reaction pathways to achieve device quality absorber films from sputtered metal precursors using various synthesis routes.
• Developed new process recipes and modified tool design for depositing the dopant and Se films in order to improve the thickness uniformity.
• Achieved 15% device efficiency with reduced number of process steps involved in device fabrication
Sr. Process Engineer San Jose, CA
Intermolecular Inc. 03/2010-12/2011
Responsibilities and Accomplishments:
• Technical lead in projects on developing high productivity combinatorial (HPC) work flows to accelerate R&D of thin film products.
• Developed TiN and TiAlN coatings for thin film transistors and RRAM applications. Applied HPC methodology in process development & accelerate learning for qualification of thin film contacts for logic and memory applications.
• Improvement of surface morphology and the microstructure of the absorber films by understanding the interaction of metallic precursors, selenium and the back contact material.
• Integrated various process steps involved in device fabrication and developed an optimum cell structure. Achieved 15% device efficiency and met a quarterly deadline to market PVD HPC product which was later become mainstream product for the company
• Provide technical support and interact with customers to resolve process engineering issues.
Process Development Engineer Santa Clara, CA
Daystar Technologies Inc. 06/2006-03/2010
Responsibilities and Accomplishments:
• Process Development Engineer/Scientist with increasing responsibility of developing pilot line for CIGS thin film solar panels
• Systematic understanding of materials right from the first principals empowered to successfully fabricate and optimize bandgap of p-type CIGS, CIGSeS and CIGS2 absorber layers.
• Developed and optimized thin film processes by wet etch, reactive sputtering and annealing techniques to integrate in pilot production
• Achieved open circuit voltages >650 mV which was one of the primary challenge for the R&D team
• Analyze and interpret data obtained with materials and electrical metrology tools for developing efficient material on large area panel. Improved thin film device quality to +/-1% on 2 feet x 4 feet large area substrates
• Routine maintenance of PVD, annealing tools, carrying out leak tests using mass spectrometer leak detector, hands on experience with maintenance of vacuum pumping systems
Graduate Research Assistant 08/2002-06/2006
Florida Solar Energy Center Cocoa, FL
Responsibilities and Accomplishments:
• Developed transparent and conducting back contact for thin film device by wet etch and hot-wall vacuum evaporation technique. Improved transparency of thin film from 50% to 90%.
• Developed a process recipe for single layer molybdenum layer instead of multilayer molybdenum back contact with optimum resistivity and considerably stress free.
• Developed CIGS thin film solar cells by sputtering and RTP anneal processes
• Developed TiN coatings by sputtering and diamond like carbon coatings by CVD technique
• Carried out outdoor monitoring and high voltage bias testing of PV modules to assess the long term performance of PV modules.
• Shown feasibility of ZnS instead of CdS as ...
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