Dr. Bulent Basol, Ph.D.

Dr. Bulent Basol, a former president of the ATAA , received his BS degree from Bogazici University in 1973 in the field of Electrical Engineering. He then completed his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA). After graduation, Bulent continued his work in Monosolar, on a cadmium telluride (CdTe) thin film photovoltaic technology that he initiated as part of his dissertation at the university. After transfering this technology to British Petrolium, he co-founded International Solar Electric Technology (ISET) where, under contract with various agencies such as DOE, DOD, DOC, NASA and California State, he concentrated on development of various photovoltaic technologies. This 15-year effort resulted in the first efficient flexible CIGS solar cells on polymeric substrates (that received innovation award from NASA) and first efficient copper-indium-gallium-selenide (CIGS) solar cells fabricated by a nanoparticle painting method. In 2000, as the CTO and Board Member of a Silicon Valley company-NuTool, Bulent started research and development work on novel electrochemical methods with applications in integrated circuit manufacturing. He also licenced a technology to Nanosolar and helped that company initiate a manufacturing technology based on printed CIGS solar cells. After the sale of NuTool to a larger company, Bulent co-founded SoloPower in 2005 and concentrated on developing a roll-to-roll manufacturing approach for CIGS solar cells and modules using novel electrochemical deposition approaches. At the present time he is working yet on another photovoltaic technology at EncoreSolar, a new company he founded in mid-2010. Bulent has 142 US patents and over 100 publications.  

Bulent Basol in the lobby of a company he founded, with some of the Turkish engineers/scientists-2009

As a part of the ATAA's  Community Information Service (CIS), the ATAA Executive Committee has decided to run the ATAA StarTURK program to recognize and commend successful Turkish Americans in the sciences, medicine, arts, business, literature, politics, sports and general vocations.  We invite the Turkish American community to participate in this program by writing to assembly@ataa.org regarding successful Turkish Americans in your communities.