Kirstin Alberi is the center director of the Materials Science Center in the Materials, Chemical and Computational Science directorate. 

She received a doctorate in materials science and engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2008, where she studied the optical and electronic properties of highly mismatched semiconductor alloys. She came to NREL as a postdoctoral researcher in the Silicon Materials and Devices group to investigate the design and performance of thin crystalline silicon (c-Si) solar cells fabricated on inexpensive substrates. In 2010, Kirstin joined the Materials Physics group to conduct basic research on the optical and electronic properties of semiconductor alloys for photovoltaic, solid-state lighting and other energy-relevant technologies.

Research Interests

Molecular beam epitaxy

Electronic materials

Optical spectroscopy 

Education

Ph.D., Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley

M.S., Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley

B.S., Materials Science and Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 

Featured Work

Defects in Cd3As2 Epilayers via Molecular Beam Epitaxy and Strategies for Reducing Them, Phys. Rev. Mater. (2019) 

Effects of Excess Carriers on Native Defects in Wide Bandgap Semiconductors: illumination as a Method to Enhance P-Type Doping, J. Appl. Phys. (2018) 

Experimental Demonstration of Voltage-Matched Two-Terminal Tandem Mini-Modules, J. Photonics for Energy (2018) 

The Origin of Deep Localization in GaAsBi and Its Consequences for Alloy Properties, Phys. Rev. Materials (2018)

Tailoring Heterovalent Interface Formation with Light, Sci. Rep. (2017) 

Insight into the Epitaxial Growth of High Optical Quality GaAs_1-xBi_x, J. Appl. Phys. (2015) 

Direct Observation of the E- Resonant State in GaAs_1-xBi_x, Phys. Rev. B (2015) 

Amber-Green Light-Emitting Diodes Using Order-Disorder AlxIn1-xP Heterostructures, J. Appl. Phys. (2013) 

Measuring Long-Range Carrier Diffusion across Multiple Grains in Polycrystalline Semiconductors by Photoluminescence Imaging, Nature Comm. (2013) 

Magnetic Field-Induced Delocalized to Localized Transformation in GaAs:N, Phys. Rev. Lett. (2012)