Printed Organic Photovoltaic Devices: Progress and Challenges

Bernard Kippelen was born and raised in Alsace, France. He studied at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg where he received a Maitrise in Solid-State Physics in 1985, and a Ph.D. in Nonlinear Optics in 1990. From 1990 to 1997 he was Chargé de Recherches at the CNRS, France. In 1994, he joined the faculty of the Optical Sciences Center at the University of Arizona. There, he developed a research and teaching program on polymer optics and plastic electronics. He holds six patents and has co-authored over 100 referenced publications and nine book chapters. His publications have received over 1,400 citations. He served as chair and co-chair of numerous international conferences on organic optoelectronic materials and devices. He is the co-founder of several spin-off companies, including NP Photonics, Inc. and LumoFlex, LLC. Since August 2003, he is a professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology where his research ranges from the investigation of fundamental physical processes (nonlinear optical activity, charge transport, light harvesting and emission), to the design, fabrication and testing of light-weight flexible optoelectronic devices based on nanostructured organic materials. He serves as the Associate Director of the Center for Organic Photonics and Electronics.

The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's premiere research universities. Ranked ninth among U.S. News & World Report's top public universities, Georgia Tech educates more than 17,000 students every year through its Colleges of Architecture, Computing, Engineering, Liberal Arts, Management and Sciences. Tech maintains a diverse campus and is among the nation's top producers of women and African-American engineers. The Institute offers research opportunities to both undergraduate and graduate students and is home to more than 100 interdisciplinary units plus the Georgia Tech Research Institute. During the 2004-2005 academic year, Georgia Tech reached $357 million in new research award funding.