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.
Olivier MartinOlivier J.F. Martin a obtenu le diplôme (M.Sc.) et le doctorat en physique de l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) en 1989, respectivement 1994. En 1989 il a rejoint le laboratoire de recherche d'IBM à Rüschlikon près de Zurich, où il a étudié les propriétés optiques et thermiques des lasers semiconducteur. Entre 1994 et 1997 il était collaborateur scientifique de l'Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Zurich (ETHZ). En 1997 il a reçu une bourse Profil du Fonds National Suisse de la Recherche Scientifique (FNSRS) lui permettant de mettre sur pied un groupe de recherche indépendant. Entre 1996 et 1999, Olivier Martin a passé plus d'une année et demi aux U.S.A. comme collaborateur invité de l'Université de Californie à San Diego. En 2001 il a reçu une bourse de professeur assistant du FNSRS et devint professeur de Nano-optique à l'ETHZ. En 2003 il a été nommé professeur de nanophotonique et de traitement optique du signal à l'EPFL où il dirige actuellement le laboratoire de Nanophotonique & Métrologie.
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.
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/) Ambrogio FasoliAmbrogio FASOLI was born on November 10, 1964, in Milano, Italy. After a classical high school diploma (Maturità Classica) and graduation from the University of Milano, with the degree of Dottore in Fisica, he obtained his Phd at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale (EPFL) with a thesis on chaos in wave-particle interactions in plasmas, which was awarded the Best EPFL Thesis prize, in 1993. He then moved to the JET Joint Undertaking, the largest worlds fusion device, near Oxford, UK, to investigate Alfvén waves and burning plasma physics. In 1995-1996 he took a sabbatical leave, visiting several Universities and Research Institutes in Europe and in the USA, including three months at General Atomics in San Diego. In 1996-1997, during a second period at JET, he participated in the fusion power worlds record experiments in Deuterium-Tritium plasmas at JET. In 1997 he was nominated Assistant Professor in MIT Physics Department, where he led a basic plasma physics group and the international collaboration between MIT and JET. In 2001 Ambrogio FASOLI was nominated Assistant Professor of Physics at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland, and Professeur Boursier of the Swiss National Science Foundation. He became member of CRPP Directorate and took the leadership of CRPP basic plasma physics group and of the TCV tokamak, one of the major fusion experiments worldwide. At European level he was scientific coordinator for JET experiments, spokesperson for multi-machine experiments in the frame of International Tokamak Physics Activities, and Project Leader for a JET Enhancement project. In 2005 he became Associate Professor of Physics with tenure at EPFL, then member of EFDA Science and Technology Advisory Committee, and of the Steering Committee of the Association EURATOM-Swiss Confederation. From 2006 he was also Deputy Director, then from 2007 Executive Director of CRPP and from 2008 Full Professor of Physics at EPFL. For a number of years he was the Chair of the EPFL Physics Strategic Committee and a member of the Directorate of the EPFL School of Sciences. Since the summer of 2014 Professor FASOLI was the sole Director of CRPP. He now represents Switzerland in the EUROfusion General Assembly and Bureau, and in the Governing Board for Fusion for Energy. He is member of the EUROfusion DEMO project Board, of the Scientific Board of the Helmotz Virtual Institute on Advanced Microwave Diagnostics, of the European Delegation for the Cooperation between Euratom and the Government of India in Fusion Energy Research, of the European Consortium for the development of the ITER gyratron (EGYC), and participates to numerous international review panels. He chairs the FuseNet Academic Council, the International Advisory Panel for the Laboratory of Excellence Plas@Par in the Sorbonne Universities, the European Consortium for the construction of the ITER microwave Upper Launcher (ECHUL), and the Promotion Committee of the EPFL Faculty of Basic Sciences. He is one the three European representatives in the International Tokamak Physics Activities Coordinating Committee, advising ITER, and the Editor-in-Chief of the IAEA journal Nuclear Fusion. Since January 2019, Ambrogio Fasoli is the Chair of the General Assembly, i.e. the president of EUROfusion, the European Consortium for Development of Fusion Energy. Professor FASOLI is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and since 2001 a Visiting Professor at MIT Physics Department. He is the Director of the Swiss Plasma Center.
Nicolas GrandjeanNicolas Grandjean received a PhD degree in physics from the University ofNice Sophia Antipolis in 1994 and shortly thereafter joined the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) as a permanent staff member. In 2004, he was appointed tenure-track assistant professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) where he created the Laboratory for advanced semiconductors for photonics and electronics. He was promoted to full professor in 2009. He was the director of the Institute of Condensed Matter Physics from 2012 to 2016 and then moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara where he spent 6 months as a visiting professor. Since 2018, he is the head of the School of Physics at the EPFL. He was awarded the Sandoz Family Foundation Grant for Academic Promotion, received the “Nakamura Lecturer” Award in 2010, the "Quantum Devices Award” at the 2017 Compound Semiconductor Week, and “2016 best teacher” award from the EPFL Physics School. His research interests are focused on the physics of nanostructures and III-V nitride semiconductor quantum photonics.
