Joe Karas is a postdoctoral researcher in NREL’s PV Reliability Group, where he studies light-induced degradation effects in silicon solar devices.

Prior to joining NREL in 2020, he finished his doctorate at Arizona State University (ASU), where he studied silicon solar cell manufacturing, characterization, and reliability. His dissertation, titled Reliability of Photovoltaic Cells with Plated Copper Electrodes, was advised by Professor Stuart Bowden at the ASU Solar Power Lab.

For additional information, see Joseph Kara's LinkedIn profile.

Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed on LinkedIn are the author’s own, made in the author's individual capacity, and do not necessarily reflect the views of NREL.

Research Interests

Photovoltaic device performance, characterization, and reliability

Solar energy modeling and data analysis

Education

Ph.D., Materials Science & Engineering, Arizona State University

B.S., Polymer Science & Engineering, Case Western Reserve University

Featured Work

Monitoring of Photovoltaic System Performance Using Outdoor Suns-VOC, Joule (2020)

Degradation of Copper‐Plated Silicon Solar Cells with Damp Heat Stress, Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and Applications (2020)

Exploring the Practical Efficiency Limit of Silicon Solar Cells Using Thin Solar-Grade Substrates, Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2020)

Damp Heat Induced Degradation of Silicon Heterojunction Solar Cells With Cu-Plated Contacts, IEEE Journal of Photovoltaics (2020)