Achievement

Brian Goodfellow, Chemical Engineering, has independently forged a collaboration with Micah Glaz, Chemistry. Brian fabricates CIGS nanocrystal-based photovoltaic devices and Micah characterizes these devices by scanning optical microscopy to order to provide spatially resolved performance data. The preliminary data resulting in this collaboration is quite promising. Together they submitted a grant proposal for our competition, "Confocal Microscopy of Nanocrystal-Based Photovoltaic Devices: Probing Local Optical and Electrical Characteristics". The issues being addressed are significant and potentially could have a large impact on improved, low cost, solar devices. The immediate outcome is that this has allowed Brian and Micah to experience research from the proposal to the publication stage, which is a rare experience for most graduate students. A second outcome is that this success will serve to encourage other IGERT trainees to come up with new ideas for collaborative research.