Bernd Rech

Bernd Rech studied Physics at Heidelberg University and RWTH Aachen, where he obtained his PhD in 1997. From 1999 – 2006, he was head of a group specialized in solar cell technology at the Institute of Photovoltaics at the Forschungszentrum Jülich. He was appointed professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Technische Universität Berlin in 2007. For several years he has been the spokesperson of the research program Renewable Energies of the Helmholtz Association. From 2006 – 2017, he was head of the Institute of Silicon Photovoltaics at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB). Bernd Rech and his team focused on the development of highly efficient and affordable thin-film silicon solar cells and new material combinations for producing tandem solar cells. He took over the office of Acting Scientific Director of the HZB in May 2017. Since June 2019, he is the Scientific Director of the HZB responsible for the research fields Energy and Information.