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Howard Branz

Principal Scientist
Fellow, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute
On staff since: 1987

Phone number: 303-384-6694
Email Howard Branz

Primary Research Interests

  • Film crystal silicon photovoltaics
  • Defects, metastability, and diffusion in semiconductors
  • Amorphous semiconductors
  • Mechanisms of film and epitaxial silicon growth
  • Nanostructured black silicon antireflection

Other Affiliations

  • Materials Research Society (MRS)
  • American Physical Society
  • Session Organizer, 16th American Conference on Crystal Growth and Epitaxy (ACCGE-16)
  • Co-Chair, 22nd International Conference on Amorphous and Nanocrystalline Semiconductors, 2007 (ICANS22)

Education

  • Ph.D. (1987) in Condensed-Matter Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Ph.D. thesis completed under the direction of David Adler and John Haggerty on hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) growth, transport physics, and devices
  • B.A. in physics from Brandeis University

Hobbies and Other Interests

  • Enjoying my twin daughters, Mikayla and Ariel
  • Foreign languages
  • Jazz and classical flute
  • Mushroom hunting and identification
  • Backpacking, running, and yoga

Selected Publications

Yuan, H.-C.; Yost, V.E.; Page, M.R.; Stradins, P.; Meier, D.L.; Branz, H.M. "Efficient black silicon solar cell with a density-graded nanoporous surface: Optical properties, performance limitations and design rules," Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 95, 2009; pp. 123501–3.

Teplin, C.W.; Jiang, C.S.; Stradins, P.; Branz, H.M. "Cone kinetics model for two-phase film silicon deposition." Appl. Phys. Lett., Vol. 92, 2008; pp. 93114–6.

Wang, Q.; Teplin, C.; Stradins, P.; To, B.; Jones, K.M.; Branz, H.M. "Significant improvement in silicon chemical vapor deposition epitaxy above the surface dehydrogenation temperature," J. Appl. Phys., Vol. 100, 2006; pp. 93520.

Du, M.-H.; Branz, H.M.; Crandall, R.S.; Zhang, S.B. "Self-trapping enhanced carrier recombination at light-induced boron-oxygen complexes in silicon," Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 97, 2006; pp. 256602–5.

Zhang, S.B.; Branz, H.M. "Hydrogen above saturation at silicon vacancies: H-pair reservoirs and metastability sites," Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 87, 2001; pp. 105503–105506.

Branz, H.M. "The hydrogen collision model: Quantitative description of metastability in amorphous silicon," Phys. Rev. B, Vol. 59, 1999; pp. 5498–5512.

Yelon, A.; Movaghar, B.; Branz, H.M. "Origin and consequences of the compensation (Meyer-Neldel) law," Phys. Rev. B, Vol. 46, 1992; pp. 12244–12250.

View a complete list of my NREL publications.

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