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Dr. Markus Beck - Photovoltaic Researcher

Dr. Beck draws on 20 years of experience in thin film (TF), solid state, compound semiconductor photovoltaic (PV) R&D as well as manufacturing. Before joining industry in 2001 as the senior scientist leading process development at Global Solar Energy (GSE) a pioneer in manufacturing of copper indium gallium diselenide (CIGS) based PV on flexible substrates, he worked as a research scientist on fundamental TF PV material processing and properties at both the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (Golden, CO), as well as the Hahn-Meitner Institut (Berlin, Germany).

Upon developing and optimizing the TF material processes at GSE, Dr. Beck’s focus shifted to product design and reliability testing for flexible, portable PV products as well as standard, rigid PV modules. Besides contributing to the commercial success of GSE, the first US company to commercially produce flexible CIGS-based PV, the GSE team effort was honored with a R&D 100 award in 2004 citing 4 key researchers at GSE; one of whom is Dr. Beck.

In January of 2006 Dr. Beck joined the team founding Solyndra Inc., subsequently in the summer of 2008 to become only the 3rd US-based company entering commercial production of CIGS-based PV. In his role as CTO he was responsible for aspects spanning from process development and metrology, material and device characterization, as well as product design and reliability. In the fall of 2008 Dr. Beck joined First Solar, the world’s largest TF module manufacturer, where his key focus was on high volume manufacturing of CIGS via disruptive new technologies drafting and executing to the technology roadmap. From April 2012 until December 2012, Dr. Beck served as Vice President of the PV Development Team in the Energy Solutions division of Samsung SDI in Korea. He directs his efforts towards ensuring cost and performance leadership through innovative front end and back end processes as well as advanced manufacturing equipment and PV module designs.

Dr. Beck holds a PhD in physical chemistry from the University of Guelph, (Ontario, Canada) pioneering a novel method synthesizing CIS in a non-vacuum process from amorphous oxide precursors. He has authored more than 30 patent applications encompassing the areas of TF deposition processes, metrology and process control, as well as PV product design. As an expert member of the US TC82 TAG he is also actively engaged in drafting and maintaining international standards for PV modules under IEC TC82 WG2. Over the past six years Dr. Beck has served as a reviewer for the peer review journal Solar Energy Materials and Solar Cells and has recently been appointed to its editorial board. Dr. Beck also served as a subject matter expert on numerous DOE panels reviewing diverse PV R&D and manufacturing grant applications.