Nava SetterNava Setter completed MSc in Civil Engineering in the Technion (Israel) and PhD in Solid State Science in Penn. State University (USA) (1980). After post-doctoral work at the Universities of Oxford (UK) and Geneva (Switzerland), she joined an R&D institute in Haifa (Israel) where she became the head of the Electronic Ceramics Lab (1988). She began her affiliation with EPFL in 1989 as the Director of the Ceramics Laboratory, becoming Full Professor of Materials Science and Engineering in 1992. She had been Head of the Materials Department in the past and more recently has served as the Director of the Doctoral School for Materials.
Research at the Ceramics Laboratory, which Nava Setter directs, concerns the science and technology of functional ceramics focusing on piezoelectric and related materials: ferroelectrics, dielectrics, pyroelectrics and also ferromagnetics. The work includes fundamental and applied research and covers the various scales from the atoms to the final devices. Emphasis is given to micro- and nano-fabrication technology with ceramics and coupled theoretical and experimental studies of the functioning of ferroelectrics.
Her own research interests include ferroelectrics and piezoelectrics: in particular the effects of interfaces, finite-size and domain-wall phenomena, as well as structure-property relations and the pursuit of new applications. The leading thread in her work over the years has been the demonstration of how basic or fundamental concepts in materials - particularly ferroelectrics - can be utilized in a new way and/or in new types of devices. She has published over 450 scientific and technical papers.
Nava Setter is a Fellow of the Swiss Academy of Technical Sciences, the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and the World Academy of Ceramics. Among the awards she received are the Swiss-Korea Research Award, the ISIF outstanding achievement award, and the Ferroelectrics-IEEE recognition award. In 2010 her research was recognized by the European Union by the award of an ERC Advanced Investigator Grant. Recently she received the IEEE-UFFC Achievement Award (2011),the W.R. Buessem Award(2011), the Robert S. Sosman Award Lecture (American Ceramics Society) (2013), and the American Vacuum Society Recognition for Excellence in Leadership (2013).
Franz-Josef HaugI studied Physics between 1990 and 1996 at the Universities of Ulm (Germany) and Waikato (New Zealand). While specializing mostly on Theoretical Physics and Quantum Theory during my studies, I turned towards Experimental Physics for a graduate work on gas-phase epitaxy of silicon. After that, I pursued a PhD program at ETH Zürich (Switzerland), studying Cu(In,Ga)Se2 solar cells. As PostDoc, I went to EMPA (Switzerland) to work on plasma processes for hard coatings of TiN and to the Jülich Research Centre in Germany to study light scattering ZnO front contacts for solar cells. In 2005 I joined the Institute of Microengineering (IMT) at the University of Neuchatel to lead a research group on thin film silicon solar cells within the PV-Lab. In 2009 the IMT was integrated into EPFL. My main research interests are optics, charge transport in semiconductors and renewable energy in general. My current work is devoted to passivating contacts for crystalline silicon solar cells, using thin silicon films as contact layers. In 2015 I was appointed Maitre d'Enseignement et Recherche (Senior Lecturer and Scientist) and member of the Faculty of STI. From 2013 to 2015 I was member of the EFPL Teachers Council (CCE) and from 2016 and 2018 I was elected into the Council of the Engineering School (CF-STI). In 2020 I was elected to become a member of CF-STI. My main objective for the legislature is to represent the role of EPFL's intermediate staff and to raise the awareness for concerns of the satellite campuses.
Nicolas GrandjeanNicolas Grandjean received a PhD degree in physics from the University ofNice Sophia Antipolis in 1994 and shortly thereafter joined the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) as a permanent staff member. In 2004, he was appointed tenure-track assistant professor at the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) where he created the Laboratory for advanced semiconductors for photonics and electronics. He was promoted to full professor in 2009. He was the director of the Institute of Condensed Matter Physics from 2012 to 2016 and then moved to the University of California at Santa Barbara where he spent 6 months as a visiting professor. Since 2018, he is the head of the School of Physics at the EPFL. He was awarded the Sandoz Family Foundation Grant for Academic Promotion, received the “Nakamura Lecturer” Award in 2010, the "Quantum Devices Award” at the 2017 Compound Semiconductor Week, and “2016 best teacher” award from the EPFL Physics School. His research interests are focused on the physics of nanostructures and III-V nitride semiconductor quantum photonics.
