Cluj University,Romania,chemistry,photovoltaic,electrochemistry,NASA,electrochemical,solar cell,research,electric energy.national research council,semiconductor

 DR. MARIA FAUR

Founder, President and CEO

Dr. Faur has a Ph.D. in Solid State Chemistry, a Masters Degree in Physical Chemistry and a BS in Electrochemistry, all from Cluj University, Romania. She has published 112 papers, and holds 16 patents. From 1972 to 1977 she was a research scientist at the Research Institute of Physics and Nuclear Engineering (IFA), Energy Conversion Laboratory, Bucharest, Romania. From 1977 to 1979 Dr Faur was a research scientist at the Central Research Institute for Chemistry (ICECHIM), Radiochemical Laboratory, Bucharest, Romania. From 1980 to 1985 Dr. Faur was a senior research scientist at the Electrical Engineering Research Institute (ICPE), Solar and Wind Electric Energy Conversion Laboratory, Bucharest, Romania. From 1986 through 1992, she was a senior research associate at Cleveland State University (CSU) working under a NASA grant. Under an exclusive NASA GRC funding of the Space Photovoltaic Research Center (SPRC) at CSU, she developed new or improved electrochemical techniques with applications to InP solar cell fabrication, and for characterization of InP and related III-V materials and structures such as:
  • various surface preparation techniques,
  • thinning the front damaged emitter layer to obtain smooth, low defect density surfaces with good electrical characteristics,
  • surface passivation,
  • determination of density of surface and deep dislocations and precipitates,
  • and high accuracy EC-V majority carrier concentration depth profiling.
From 1992 through 1995 she was awarded a National Research Council (NRC)/NASA senior research associateship in the Photovoltaic and Space Environment Branch at NASA GRC. During this program, she has developed new electrochemical characterization and processing techniques for Si, Ge and InP and GaAs based binary, ternary and quaternary III-V compound semiconductor structures.

In 1996-1998, for 6 months each year, she was a senior research associate at CSU as a subcontractor to the NASA LeRC Director's Discretionary Fund (DDF) proposal entitled, "Ultra-Low-Cost Room Temperature Wet Chemical Growth of SiC Thin Films." Dr. Faur investigated the effectiveness of a new room temperature thin film SiC growth technique on Silicon and Germanium substrates, to be used as a protective and antireflective coating. In November 1996 she formed SPECMAT, Inc. where she currently serves as president and CEO.

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