Profile

I grew up in Basildon, Essex, and moved to Loughborough for my undergrad, and stayed for my postgrad. I read, listen to an insane amount of house music, and go to see DJ sets when I can.

After work in the evenings I binge-watch TV shows – how have I only just started Game of Thrones?! – and at weekends I see my boyfriend, where we watch nerdy documentaries and play with his two cats.

I am also a member of the Green Party and get involved with my local branches meetings and activities.

My Google Scholar page: http://bit.ly/2mUFdln

The aim of my research is to make it super cheap and super easy for companies to make solar panels so that its cheap for everyone to buy for themselves.

Silicon is used in around 90% of solar panels, however it takes a long time and a lot of energy to make one. If the aim is to reduce carbon emissions, using lots of carbon-heavy energy isn’t a good idea!

I study CZTS – a semiconductor made from Copper (Cu), Zinc (Zn), Tin (Sn) and Sulphur (S). We mix these powders together with some liquids in a vial, leave it for a couple of days to dissolve, and then spray it onto hot glass to make a thin film. These films are really thin – 1/500th of 1mm!

Next, I shine light on them to see how efficient it is at converting it to electricity. I do different tests to see what is and isn’t working, and then I change my method to see if I can make the bad bits good (and keep the good bits good!)

To make a solar cells takes three-four days, so what i do each day depends on where I am in the process.

Typically I will come in in the morning and start mixing a solution, or if one has been mixing for two days then I will deposit it (takes around an hour, depending on how many times I deposit).
After deposition, I do a heat treatment to crystallise my films, and then test them. Sometimes I use a Scanning Electron Microscope (an SEM – a microscope that uses particles instead of light to see things) to look at what Ive made.
Once I have results, I talk about them with the lecturer supervising me, and we decide what went well or what didn’t, and what I can do differently next time.

Other than that, there is lots of waiting for machines to do their thing, so I can sneak in some Youtube videos (only when I don’t have anything else to do though!)