Dawn of the First Day! (also Perovskites)

The first day working at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has arrived! We went to NREL at 7:45, and had orientation all day. We got our badges, learned about the dangers of texting and walking, and got to meet a bunch of other interns. I met my namesake, David Marin, and out copatriot, David Brown (of course we all sat next to each other). Also, they had free food. Lots of free food. It was wonderful.

The Solar Energy Research Facility (SERF) where I'll be doing most of my work at NREL (Image Credit: IEEE)

My cubical is on the left side of the building

I got to leave orientation early, because I had covered it last year, and went to meet with Joe, my mentor. Joe and I talked about what project I'll be pursuing the next 10 weeks, and decided on a bit of a combination project, which I'll describe briefly below (hopefully in an understandable way)

I'm working on solar cells. Solar cells are things we can make which produce electricity when the sun shines on them. They currently account for approximately 0.4% of all the energy the United States consumes.

Specifically, I'm working on Perovskite solar cells. Perovskites are a type of material which follows a specific structural makeup (as shown below). It was discovered from the mineral Perovskite (hence the name). In 2009, someone figured out we could use perovskites in solar cells, and they made a device which converted about 3% of the sunlight which shined on it into electricity. Now, six years later, we're making Perovskite solar cells which convert about 15% of the sunlight shining on it into electricity!

The structure of the perovskites I'll be working with (Image credit: Wikipedia)

This is really cool! Not only are perovskites getting better really fast, but they're also  really easy to make (essentially pour hot liquid on a surface). This means they are much cheaper than the solar cells people manufacture now (Silicon solar cells).

There are a couple downsides to perovskites, and a lot we don't understand since they're so new, but we think we can overcome the problems they have (primarily breaking really fast and not super consistently having the same results). I get to be a part of this solution!

I'll be doing two things with perovskites at NREL (at least, that's the plan as of now). First, I'll be measuring the angle water makes on different materials we may put under perovskites. This I'll be doing in the first couple weeks using a procedure I developed last year while working at NREL.

Second, I'll be automating some analysis of surface properties of perovskites that Philip is working on so we can do more interesting studies of the surfaces which require too much work to do by hand.

That probably enough of an information dump for now, so I won't bore you with exactly why I'm doing these two things now, but trust me: they're gonna save the planet! Also, they may let me contribute towards a paper or a patent (depending on if the devices work).