Dr. Kunal J. Tiwari (born 5th March 1989, India) completed his Ph.D in physics from SRM Institute of Science and Technology Chennai, India in Nov. 2018. He is an experimental materials scientist with considerable experience in thin films science and technology, and a recent experience in solar cells device modelling. For his Ph.D thesis, he focused on studying the structural and optical properties of critical raw material free chalcogenide absorbers thin films deposited by electron beam evaporation method. The highlight of his PhD thesis was establishing a reliable methodology to deposit inorganic compound semiconductors such as Cu2ZnSnSe4, CuSbSe2 and Sb2Se3 in an industry compatible, single step electron beam evaporation using bulk source materials prepared through mechanical alloying and high temperature melting processes. In the course of his PhD, he developed an expertise on different methods for preparing bulk semiconductors followed by the deposition of thin films through various PVD routes such as thermal and e-beam evaporation and RF and DC magnetron sputtering. Dr. Tiwari has collaborated with different research groups based at IISc Bangalore and IIT Madras at India, center for ion beam application (CIBA) NUS Singapore and Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC) Spain for advanced materials as well as device characterization. Such close interaction and collaboration with colleagues working in different yet related research fields have allowed him to expand his scientific knowledge in fields like thermoelectricity or light trapping in semiconductor microstructures, as reflected through his contribution as co-authors in different publications.
After completion of his PhD, Dr. Tiwari was recruited by IREC, one of the reference research centers in field of renewable energy technologies in Europe, as post-doctoral researcher under the supervision of Dr. Edgardo Saucedo the framework of the national project IGNITE funded by Spanish ministry of science and technology.Since Jan. 2021, he is working as research fellow in the framework of the ERC consolidator grant SENSATE with Prof. Edgardo Saucedo at the Polytechnic University of Catalunya (UPC), where he is leading the research line for exploration of novel low dimension MXene contacts for emerging solar cells.
