Christian Wetzel

Christian Wetzel (SM'07) received the Diplom-Physiker degree in technical physics and the Dr. rer. nat. degree in physics from the Technical University Munich, Munich, Germany, in 1988 and 1993, respectively. In 1994, he joined the University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA, as a Visiting Scientist. He joined the High Tech Research Center at Meijo University, Nagoya, Japan, in 1997 and Uniroyal Optoelectronics, Tampa, FL, USA, in 2000. In March 2004, he joined the Department of Physics, Applied Physics, and Astronomy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA, as an Associate Professor and Wellfleet Career Development Constellation Professor, Future Chips. Since 2011, he has been a Professor. He is a founding member of the Future Chips Constellation and a Thrust Leader in the Smart Lighting Engineering Research Center. His work concerns energy efficiency by wide-bandgap semiconductors, primarily group-III nitrides for solid-state lighting. His recent research interests include materials and device development of green light-emitting diodes by GaInN epitaxy. Dr. Wetzel was the Chair of the International Conference on Nitride Semiconductors (ICNS-10 2013), the International Workshop on Nitride Semiconductors (IWN 2010), and the Electronic Materials Conference (EMC 2012 and 2013). His work was awarded the Illuminating Ideas Award by the U.S. Department of Energy for significant achievements in solid-state lighting R&D in 2009 and 2011.