Christophe BallifChristophe Ballif is director of the Phototovoltaics and Thin Film Electronics Laboratoryb) (PV-Lab at the institute of microengineering (IMT) in Neuchâtel (part of the EPFL since 2009). The lab focus is on the science and technology of high efficiency heterojunction crystalline cells,so-called passivating contacts for solar cells, multi-junction solar cells include novel generation Perovskite on innovative optical high speed detector and on various macroelectronics application. It also deals with energy management with a focus on integration of solar electricity into the energy system. The PV-Lab has strongly contributed to technology transfer and industrialization of novel devices and full technology with numerous companies. Christophe Ballif graduated as a physicist from the EPFL in 1994, where he also obtained in 1998 his Phd degree working on novel PV materials. He accomplished his postdoctoral research at NREL (Golden, US) on compound semiconductor solar cells (CIGS and CdTe). He worked then at the Fraunhofer ISE (Ge) on crystalline silicon photovoltaics (monocrystalline and multi-crystalline) until 2003 and then at the EMPA in Thun (CH) before becoming full professor at the University of Neuchâtel IMT in 2004, taking over the chair of Prof. A. Shah. Since 2013, C.Ballif is also the director of the new CSEM PV-Center, also located in Neuchâtel. The CSEM PV-Center is focussing more on industrialisation and technology transfer in the field of solar energy, including solar electricity management and storage. At the core of the CSEM PV-center activities lies several "pilot lines" for various kinds of solar cells manufacturing, with a focus coating technologies, wet chemistry processes for crystalline silicon, metalisation techniques for solar cells, and a platform for developing "ideal packaging solutions and polymers" for PV modules. In addition, joined facitilites between CSEM and EPFL of over 800 m2 are available for modules manufacturing, measuring and accelerated aging. CSEM PV-center has also full team dedicated to storage and energy systems and operates a joined center with BFH in Biel for research on electrochemical storage. He (co-) authored over 500 journal and technical papers, as well as several patents. He is an elected member of the SATW, member of the scientific council of the Swiss AEE, and member of the board of the EPFL Energy center. In 2016, he recieved the Becquerel prize for his contributions to the field of high efficiency photovoltaics.
Dragan DamjanovicDragan Damjanovic received BSc diploma in Physics from the Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, University of Sarajevo, in 1980, and PhD in Ceramics Science from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, the Pennsylvania State University (PSU) in 1987. From 1988 to 1991 he was a research associate in the Materials Research Laboratory at the PSU. He joined the Ceramics Laboratory, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne in 1991. He is currently a "professeur titulaire", heads the Group for Ferroelectrics and Functional Oxides at the Institute of Materials and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on structure and electrical properties of materials. The research activities include fundamental and applied investigations of piezoelectric, ferroelectric and dielectric properties of a broad class of materials.
Duncan Thomas Lindsay AlexanderDuncan Alexander graduated with a PhD in Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge in 2003 for a thesis on the kinetics of metallurgical phase transformations under the direction of Lindsay Greer. From 2003 to 2007 he held a Royal Society Overseas Research Fellowship at the University of Sydney, and then post-doctoral positions at the University of Cambridge and Arizona State University, working first on materials electrochemistry with Carsten Schwandt and Derek Fray, and then the characterization of atmospheric aerosol particles with Peter Crozier and Jim Anderson. In 2007 he came to EPFL as a scientific collaborator in the group of László Forró, and from 2008 to 2017 he was a staff scientist at EPFL’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Electron Microscopy (CIME), specializing in the application of advanced transmission electron microscopy techniques and enabling electron microscopy research activities for groups across EPFL through teaching, training and support. In 2018 he joined the Electron Spectrometry and Microscopy Laboratory (LSME) as a full-time research scientist dedicated to advancing transmission electron microscopy techniques, and was promoted to the status of Research and Teaching Associate. In 2019, together with LSME director Cécile Hébert, he launched the first MOOC on transmission electron microscopy for materials science: https://www.coursera.org/learn/microscopy/For a complete list of peer-reviewed publications, see:https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4350-8587 Peter RyserDr. Peter Ryser is a Professor Emeritus at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne. He has over three decades of research and teaching experience from various corporate and academic institutions. He was previously a Director at Siemens Building Technologies where he was responsible for R&D, product innovation and patents. Dr. Ryser has a Ph.D. in applied Physics from the University of Geneva, a Masters degree in Experimental Physics and an MBA.
Daniele MariDaniele Mari was born in Milan in 1961, After a scientific high school degree obatained in Italy Daniele Mari joins EPFL in 1980 and graduates in Physics in 1986. In 1991, he obtains the Ph.D. from the same institution working in the field of metal-ceramic composites. From 1992 to 1993 he continues his research as a post-doc at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology with a work on shape-memory alloys. In 1993, he joins the company Amysa Yverdon SA (Switzerland) as director of Research and Development and creates ACME (Advanced Composite & Microwave Engineering) with activities in the fields of the electromagnetic heating and materials science. In parallel with his industrial activities, D. Mari has supervised different research projects in materials science at the EPFL. In 2004 he joins the Laboratoire de Physique de la Matière Complexe to develop mechanical spectroscopy in the field of hard materials and steels. He is appointed MER in 2012. Since then he is responsible for the Physics Laboratories (for student training) and Auditoriums. Since 2013 D. Mari is the Deputy Director of the Physics School.
Jean-François MolinariProfessor J.F. Molinari is the director of the Computational Solid Mechanics Laboratory (http://lsms.epfl.ch) at EPFL, Switzerland. He holds an appointment in the Civil Engineering institute, which he directed from 2013 to 2017, and a joint appointment in the Materials Science institute. He started his tenure at EPFL in 2007, and was promoted to Full Professor in 2012. He is currently an elected member of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation in Division 2 (Mathematics, Natural and Engineering Sciences), and co editor in chief of the journal Mechanics of Materials. J.F. Molinari graduated from Caltech, USA, in 2001, with a M.S. and Ph.D. in Aeronautics. He held professorships in several countries besides Switzerland, including the United States with a position in Mechanical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University (2000-2006), and France at Ecole Normale Supérieure Cachan in Mechanics (2005-2007), as well as a Teaching Associate position at the Ecole Polytechnique de Paris (2006-2009). The work conducted by Prof. Molinari and his collaborators takes place at the frontier between traditional disciplines and covers several length scales from atomistic to macroscopic scales. Over the years, Professor Molinari and his group have been developing novel multiscale approaches for a seamless coupling across scales. The activities of the laboratory span the domains of damage mechanics of materials and structures, nano- and microstructural mechanical properties, and tribology. Jürgen BruggerI am a Professor of Microengineering and co-affiliated to Materials Science. Before joining EPFL I was at the MESA Research Institute of Nanotechnology at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, at the IBM Zurich Research Laboratory, and at the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory, in Tokyo, Japan. I received a Master in Physical-Electronics and a PhD degree from Neuchâtel University, Switzerland. Research in my laboratory focuses on various aspects of MEMS and Nanotechnology. My group contributes to the field at the fundamental level as well as in technological development, as demonstrated by the start-ups that spun off from the lab. In our research, key competences are in micro/nanofabrication, additive micro-manufacturing, new materials for MEMS, increasingly for wearable and biomedical applications. Together with my students and colleagues we published over 200 peer-refereed papers and I had the pleasure to supervise over 25 PhD students. Former students and postdocs have been successful in receiving awards and starting their own scientific careers. I am honoured for the appointment in 2016 as Fellow of the IEEE “For contributions to micro and nano manufacturing technology”. In 2017 my lab was awarded an ERC AdvG in the field of advanced micro-manufacturing.
Mohammad Khaja NazeeruddinDr. Md. K. Nazeeruddin received M.Sc. and Ph. D. in inorganic chemistry from Osmania University, Hyderabad, India. He joined as a Lecturer in Deccan College of Engineering and Technology, Osmania University in 1986, and subsequently, moved to Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute, Bhavnagar, as a Research Associate. He was awarded the Government of Indias fellowship in 1987 for study abroad. After one year postdoctoral stay with Prof. Graetzel at Swiss federal institute of technology Lausanne (E P F L), he joined the same institute as a Senior Scientist. His current research focuses on Dye-sensitized solar cells, Hydrogen production, Light-emitting diodes and Chemical sensors. He has published more than 380 peer-reviewed papers, ten book chapters, and inventor of 40 patents. The high impact of his work has been recognized with invitations to speak at over 80 international conferences, including the MRS Fall (USA, 2006) and Spring 2011 Meetings, GORDON conference (2014), and has been nominated to the OLLA International Scientific Advisory Board. He appeared in the ISI listing of most cited chemists, and has more than 33'500 citations with an h-index of 89. He is teaching "Functional Materials" course at EPFL, and Korea University; directing, and managing several industrial, national, and European Union projects on Hydrogen energy, Photovoltaics (DSC), and Organic Light Emitting Diodes. He was awarded EPFL Excellence prize in 1998 and 2006, Brazilian FAPESP Fellowship in 1999, Japanese Government Science & Technology Agency Fellowship, in 1998, Government of India National Fellowship in 1987-1988. Recently he has been appointed as World Class University (WCU) professor by the Korea University, Jochiwon, Korea (http://dses.korea.ac.kr/eng/sub01_06_2.htm) and Adjunct Professor by the King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Andreas MortensenAndreas Mortensen is currently Professor and Director of the Institute of Materials at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), where he heads the Laboratory for Mechanical Metallurgy. He joined the faculty of EPFL 1997 after ten years, from 1986 to 1996, as a member of the faculty of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he held the successive titles of ALCOA Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor. His research is focussed on the processing, microstructural development and mechanical behavior of advanced metallic materials with particular focus on metal matrix composites and metal foams, on infiltration processing and capillarity, and on damage and fracture in metallic materials. He is author or co-author of two monographs, around one hundred and eighty scientific or technical publications and twelve patents. Born in San Francisco in 1957, of dual (Danish and US) nationality, Andreas Mortensen graduated in 1980 from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris with a Diplôme dIngénieur Civil, and earned his Ph.D. in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at MIT in 1986. Besides his academic employment, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Nippon Steel during part of 1986, and was invited professor at the Ecole des Mines in Paris during the academic year 1995 to 1996. He is a member of the editorial committee of International Materials Reviews and has co-edited four books. He is a Fellow of ASM, a recipient of the Howe Medal and the Grossman Award of the American Society of Metals, was awarded the Péchiney Prize by the French Academy of Sciences and the Res Metallica Chair from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, received three EPFL teaching awards, is one of ISIs Highly Cited authors for Materials Science since 2002 and was awarded an ERC advanced grant in 2012.
Paul MuraltPaul Muralt received a diploma in experimental physics in 1978 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH in Zurich. He accomplished his Ph.D. thesis in the field of commensurate-incommensurate phase transitions at the Solid State Laboratory of ETH. In the years 1984 and 1985 he held a post doctoral position at the IBM Research Laboratory in Zurich where he pioneered the application of scanning tunneling microscopy to surface potential imaging. In 1987, after a stay at the Free University of Berlin, he joined the Balzers group in Liechtenstein. He specialized in sputter deposition techniques, and managed since 1991 a department for development and applications of Physical Vapor Deposition and PECVD processes. In 1993, he joined the Ceramics Laboratory of EPFL in Lausanne. AS group leader for thin films and MEMS devices, he specialized in piezoelectric and pyroelectric MEMS with mostly Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 and AlN thin film. His research interests are in thin film growth in general, and more specifically in property assessment of small ferroelectric structures, in integration issues of ferroelectric and other polar materials, property-microstructure relationships, and applications of polar materials in semiconductor and micro-electro-mechanical devices. More recently he extended his interests to oxide thin films of ionic conductors. The focus in piezoelectric thin films was directed towards AlN-ScN alloys. He gives lectures in thin film processing, micro fabrication, and surface analysis. He authored or co-authored more than 230 scientific articles. He became Fellow of IEEE in 2013. In 2005, he received an outstanding achievement award at the International Symposium on Integrated Ferroelectrics (ISIF), and in 2016 the B.C. Sawyer Memorial award.
Chairman of the International Workshops on Piezoelectric MEMS(http://www.piezomems2011.org/) Cécile HébertCécile Hébert est née en France, en 1970. Elle a obtenu son diplôme d'ingénieure (option physique) puis son doctorat ("Etude d'un nouveau filtre d'énergie des électrons pour le microscope électronique à transmission") à l'Ecole centrale de Paris. Doctorante dans le laboratoire du professeur Jouffrey, elle a créé un nouveau filtre d'énergie des électrons, pour le microscope électronique à transmission, qui a été breveté par le CNRS.
En tant que post-doctorante dans le laboratoire du professeur Schattschneider, elle a mené à bien une étude marquante sur la simulation des structures fines des seuils de perte d'énergie des électrons en comparaison avec l'expérience. En 2005, elle a été l'une des actrices principales dans l'élaboration du projet européen CHIRALTEM visant à développer dans le microscope électronique à transmission une méthode similaire à la méthode XMCD (X Ray Magnetic Circular Dichroism) connue en spectrométrie d'absorption des rayons X.
