Founders

Bulent Basol, Ph.D.

Co-founder and Board Member, Dr. Bulent Basol brings to SoloPower over 30 years of distinguished innovation in thin film photovoltaics (PV). His work in the field began in the late 1970s, with his pioneering Ph.D. dissertation on “Electrodeposited CdTe Thin-Film Solar Cells.” After graduating in 1980, he continued to lead the development of CdTe PV technology at Monosolar Inc., where he successfully demonstrated over 11% conversion efficiency.

In 1984, this patented technology was sold to BP and subsequently yielded the highest efficiency thin film PV modules in the world at the time. Dr. Basol next co-founded International Solar Electric Technology (ISET), where he headed technology development and acted as Principal Investigator for numerous CIGS- and CdTe-based solar cell development programs funded by the DOE, NASA, DOD, DOC and aerospace corporations.

Among these were novel nano-ink based approaches that yielded the first and the most efficient ink-based CIGS devices (over 12%) at the time. Dr. Basol also developed the first efficient, flexible Copper-Indium-Selenide solar cell structure on polymeric substrates, for which he received an innovation award from NASA. In 2000 he joined NuTool Inc., a Silicon Valley start-up company, as a Board Member and Chief Technical Officer, where he led efforts to develop electroplating, electrochemical mechanical deposition, electropolishing, and electrochemical mechanical polishing processes and tools for IC interconnect application.

In 2004 ASM International acquired NuTool, and Dr. Basol became the CTO of the new company, ASM NuTool. The SoloPower core technology is based on some of Dr. Basol's innovations employing high-throughput, low-cost electroplating techniques for high efficiency CIGS device fabrication.

Dr. Basol has 96 issued and over 60 pending US patents in the fields of PV, materials processing and tools for semiconductor manufacturing. He has authored over 100 publications and has served on the technical committees of many international conferences. In addition to a Ph.D. in Solid State Electronics from UCLA, Dr. Basol holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey.

Homayoun Talieh

Co-founder and Board Member, Homayoun Talieh brings over 20 years of technological and business leadership in photovoltaics and semiconductors to his role at SoloPower. Mr. Talieh began his career at Monosolar Inc., a company that pioneered a revolutionary new electroplating technique for the deposition of CdTe solar cells on glass. Mr. Talieh went on to Applied Materials and then OnTrak Systems. He served as Vice President and General Manager of the CMP division of OnTrak Systems where he developed innovative semiconductor equipment that enabled the company to tap into a new multi-billion dollar market. He was also instrumental in helping OnTrak go public.

After OnTrak, Mr. Talieh served as the General Manager of Applied Materials’ track division, where he designed new thin film processing equipment. In 2000, Mr. Talieh founded and served as president and CEO of NuTool, a semiconductor electroplating and polishing equipment company. He oversaw the acquisition of NuTool by ASM International in June 2004 and subsequently served as General Manager of the new company, ASM NuTool. Mr. Talieh's founding of SoloPower brings him full circle, to focus once again on products that apply groundbreaking photovoltaic technology in new ways.

Mr. Talieh holds more than 63 patents in the areas of Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD), Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD), Chemical Mechanical Planarization (CMP) and photolithography and has authored numerous papers published in leading technical journals. He holds a B.S. degree in electrical engineering from Northeastern University and a masters in material science from the University of Illinois.