Dr. Richard King

Richard R. King received his Ph.D. and M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University in 1990 and 1987, and his B.S. degree in physics in 1985, also from Stanford.  He was Principal Scientist and Boeing Technical Fellow at aerospace company Spectrolab, Inc. before becoming a professor in the School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering at Arizona State University in 2015.  His research on photovoltaics over the last 35 years has explored defects and recombination in compound semiconductors and silicon, solar cell optics, metamorphic III-V materials, dilute nitride GaInNAs, sublattice ordering, high-transparency tunnel junctions, and high-efficiency multijunction solar cells with 3 to 6 junctions.  In 2006, this work led to the first solar cells to reach over 40% efficiency.  Dr. King's research group is currently interested in photovoltaic efficiency limits, photon-matter interactions, defect tolerant materials, photon and thermal management in solar cells and modules, and societal factors influencing local and global solar electricity deployment.  Dr. King is an IEEE Fellow, and recipient of the 2010 William R. Cherry Award for "outstanding contributions to photovoltaic science and technology."  He was a co-founding editor of the IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics, and served as general chair for the 40th IEEE Photovoltaic Specialists Conference in Denver, CO in 2014.