Sergio Giraldo obtained his PhD in 2018 at the Catalonia Institute for Energy Research (IREC). After obtaining the master’s degree, he focused his career on sustainable photovoltaic technologies using earth abundant elements. He was awarded an FPI (Formación de Personal Investigador) fellowship from the Spanish Ministry to develop the PhD thesis entitled “Advanced strategies for high efficiency kesterite thin film solar cells”. His PhD work was devoted to study different approaches to improve the kesterite devices performance through doping and optimization strategies, and investigate the mechanisms which are limiting its efficiency, the impact of these innovative strategies as well as the formation pathways of this promising semiconductor material. This successful work has enabled him to attend several international conferences (IEEE-PVSC in USA, PVSEC in Asia, EU PVSEC, E-MRS, MRS, WCPEC, etc.), with more than 140 presentations (more than 70 orals and 20 invited talks), and the publication of several papers in high-impact journals (50 papers) as well as 2 book chapters. He was granted the PhD Student Award in the European Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (EU PVSEC 2015) that was held in Hamburg (Germany) in September 2015. Additionally, as a PhD student, he developed a research stay in the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) in Japan, from January to April 2017, where he successfully worked on the development of high efficiency kesterite thin film solar cells, achieving efficiency values among the best reported for this material. In 2018, 2019 and 2022, already as a postdoc researcher, he developed three additional research stays at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa and at MAScIR and the Mohammed V University (UM5) in Morocco, in the framework of the INFINITE-CELL H2020 project, which he has coordinated.
Sergio has also been highly involved in the organization of national and international workshops and schools, including the 8th European Kesterite Workshop (Students’ Day) held in Barcelona (Spain) in November 2018, and the NEXTGEN 2019 International School and Workshop held in Palma de Mallorca (Spain) in October 2019. Furthermore, he has participated as chairperson in well-renowned international conferences such as the MRS Spring Meeting in Phoenix (USA) in 2017, and the WCPEC-7 (World Conference on Photovoltaic Energy Conversion) in Hawaii (USA) in 2018. He is also permanently active as referee of scientific articles from the leading publishers, like Wiley-VCH, Elsevier, etc. Besides, Sergio is supervising 1 PhD thesis in the frame of the CUSTOM-ART European project. In April 2019, he got a staff researcher position in the Solar Energy Materials and Systems group in IREC, highly involved in the coordination of the thin film synthesis laboratory. In 2021, he was awarded a Juan de la Cierva-incorporación grant from the Spanish Ministry allowing him to obtain his current researcher position at the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC).