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Ascent Solar Adds Dr. Miguel Contreras as Director of Process Engineering
Jul. 11, 2017 08:39AM PST
Cleantech Investing
Ascent Solar Technologies (OTCQB:ASTI) has added Dr. Miguel Contreras to its team effective July 10, 2017 as the director of process engineering. As quoted in the press release: Dr. Contreras, formerly a Senior Scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), was a key member of the team that achieved the world-record conversion efficiency of …
Ascent Solar Technologies (OTCQB:ASTI) has added Dr. Miguel Contreras to its team effective July 10, 2017 as the director of process engineering.
As quoted in the press release:
Dr. Contreras, formerly a Senior Scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), was a key member of the team that achieved the world-record conversion efficiency of 20% with CIGS solar cells. Throughout his career with NREL, Dr. Contreras has produced several world-record energy conversion efficiencies and holds 7 U.S. patents in this field. He has extensive experience in all facets of solar cell and PV module fabrication, both front and back end, and has worked with nearly all types of CIGS (copper-indium-gallium-diselenide) technology, manufacturers and researchers dating back to the early 1990’s. Dr. Contreras holds a M.S. Degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Wisconsin-Madison and Ph.D. in Materials Science from the Colorado School of Mines.
“We are very fortunate to bring Miguel into the Ascent family,” stated Dr. Joseph Armstrong, CTO and Founder of Ascent Solar. “The PV world is relatively small, and we have worked with Miguel for nearly three decades. He brings his expertise and world-record efficiency credentials in CIGS technology to Ascent, which is the first company to have brought monolithically-integrated flexible CIGS to production. His extensive background in deposition processes and equipment design and development further solidifies our existing team’s prominence. His most recent work, on high specific power PV solutions, is aligned well with the core technologies at ASTI. Miguel will oversee our outstanding process engineering team, and brings his highly experienced perspective to many manufacturing challenges faced by CIGS companies. In conjunction with ongoing activities in R&D, Miguel will also implement improvements in module performance for a wide range of commercial applications, including the environments faced by military and aerospace applications. Ascent Solar now boasts well over 150 years of CIGS and related thin film PV expertise.”
