Education:
Ph.D. in Materials Science from Yale University, 1973.
Experience:
Dr. Sundaram has worked from 1994 to present for EDTEK, Inc. on a half-time basis. He has been responsible for fabrication of GaAs concentrator solar cells and for transferring the GaSb PV cell technology developed at Boeing to the EDTEK facility. He has improved the process from less than 5% yield in the Boeing Laboratory to greater than 90% yield in the EDTEK pilot production line. He has also continued to work half time for the Boeing Company where he has been responsible for developing coatings which include crystalline diamond coatings, for the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company. From 1987 to 1994 he worked at Boeing Aerospace & Electronics, Seattle, WA as a research scientist. At Boeing he worked in the areas of III-V compound semiconductor epitaxy and device processing for making quantum-well lasers and narrow-bandgap solar cells. He developed a zinc diffused p-n junction formation process for GaSb and techniques for making low-resistance ohmic contacts to GaSb. He also developed process techniques for making textured GaSb surfaces. He was a co-inventor of 1) a multiple wavelength GaAs-based laser diode optical source and, 2) III-V solar cells and doping processes. From 1985-1987, Dr. Sundaram was at General Optronics, NJ, working on GaAs/AlGaAs heterstructure lasers. He was in charge of the MOCVD Laboratory and successfully fabricated low-threshold, high-power diode lasers for pumping YAG lasers. He also assisted the implementation of large-scale manufacturing techniques. During 1982-83 he spent a sabbatical year at the National Research Council, Ottawa, Canada, working on tin doping of GaAs by low-pressure MOCVD. He worked as an assistant (1976-1981) and as an associate (1981-1985) professor of applied Physics at the University of Campinas, Brazil. There he worked on the electronic and catalytic properties of noble metal alloys and on MOCVD of GaAs. He was responsible for setting up their Surface Science Laboratory. Dr. Sundaram has worked as a Research Scientist in the Metallurgy Department of the Scientific Laboratory at the Ford Motor Company between 1973 and 1975. He was the recipient of the Harding Bliss Award at Yale for Excellence in Engineering and Applied Science in 1973.
Patents:
Multiple wavelength LED and Laser Diode Source, issued on 8/11/92. L. Figueroa, C.S. Hong and V.S. Sundaram, Patent # 5138624. III-V Solar Cells and Doping Processes, issued on 6/8/93. V.S. Sundaram et al. patent # 5217539.
Publications:
Over 90 publications in refereed journals. Some selected recent presentations are:
Diamond Like Carbon Films as a Protective Coating for High Strength Steel and Titanium Alloys, V.S. Sundaram, ASM 2000-Materials Conference, St. Louis, MO, October 2000.
Thermophotovoltaics – an old concept whose time has come.
V.S. Sundaram, M.D. Morgan and W.E. Horne, Proceedings of Solid State Conference, New Delhi, India, December, 1997.