IGERT Summer Undergraduate Experience

This year, the IGERT in Sustainable Energy and Solar Hydrogen, ran its first summer undergraduate research internship.  Six undergraduates, and one high school student were involved in the project and were introduced to new and exciting concepts involving hydrogen storage, fuel cells, solar policy and photovoltaics.  The experience also allowed them to take courses in ethics, effective oral communication skills and health and safety procedures.

Five of the six undergraduates students came from the University of Delaware itself. These were Andy Damiani, Marc Henderson, Juanita Jablasome, Erin McAuliffe and Bogen Nedanov. Even though they came from multiple disciplines, including Economics, Chemical Engineering, Materials Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering, their diverse interests allowed them to unite to discuss Sustainable Energy.
Yannick Goue, majoring in Maths and Physics, was our one undergraduate who traveled the furthest… He came from Lincoln University to take part in the program.  Erik Andres, a newly graduated high school student also took part in the program and worked closely with Professor Lauterbach in the Chemical Engineering department. He has registered for Engineering in the Fall, and looks forward to finding out more about Engineering.

Many thanks needs to go to the Institute of Energy Conversion, the Department of Economics, the Department of Materials Science and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering for all their help during the 10 week program. Without their help, many of the events organized would not have taken place.

A special thanks also needs to go to Air Liquide who provided our students with a site visit and a glimpse of how a hydrogen fuel cell works. They also got to travel in the Hydrogen Fuel Cell Bus.

Have a read of the comments from some of our summer undergraduates about the program…perhaps you’d like to be a part of it next year?

Andy Damiani

The objective of my research was to decrease the thickness of CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenide) layer in a CIGS solar cell, which reduces cost and time, and maintain the same absorption of light.  The problem is that when the CIGS layer decreases the absorption of light decreases.  My approach was to deposit smooth TCO (Textured Conductive Oxides) layer and etch to texture which results in scattered light that will increase the optical path length and have a higher absorption of photons, therefore a higher efficiency. The TCO that I used was ITO (Indium Tin Oxide) and the etchant I used was hydrochloric acid.  A spectrophotometer was used to measure the total and diffuse transmittance.  Haze can be calculated by taking the ratio of the diffuse transmittance to the total transmittance.  Haze is defined as the cloudiness of a product that is caused by scattering of light.  I measured percent haze as a function of time, concentration, and temperature.  I also tested sheet resistance, which is equal to resistivity divided by the thickness of the film.  Further explorations are to make CIGS solar cells and test the efficiency.

I thought the IGERT program helped me improve my knowledge of photovoltaics, fuel cells, and the economic aspects of a hydrogen infrastructure. I thought the lectures that the professors gave were interesting, especially Professor Lauterbach on hydrogen storage. I enjoyed the various activities, such as riding on the fuel cell bus and going to Air Liquide.  Giving oral presentation was a good experience, because it improved my public speaking skills.  The IGERT staff was very organized and helpful. 

Ouloide Yannick Goue

Having an internship is a matter of importance for students in general, and undergraduates in particular since through it they can further their scientific reasoning. This summer, I have had my first ever internship. To tell you, it has been fruitful in term of knowledge, and the cordiality of the people who ran the program was outstanding. They provided for our cares, and were also willing to do even more. In fine, I paragon them to philanthropic individuals at the service of science.

My internship was at the Institute of Energy Conversion under scientist Brian Mc Candlesses supervision. My research interest was looked at tailoring the optical band-gap in CdTe-CdSe alloy systems to increase the open circuit voltage (Voc). On the whole wee made solar cells, which yielded different band-gaps and different Voc. Our results are promising in so far as ongoing researches are concerned. I have also participated in every process involving the making of our cells, which was very fun.

Apart from that, I have attended some lectures on fuel cells, hydrogen economy and the importance of ethics. Believe me, these are awesome experiences one needs to live and not to be told. Looking for a summer program, the IGERT is the one for you. As to me, I am looking forward to coming back next summer.    

Bogdan Nedanov

At first I did not have a particular topic and I was mostly trying to familiarize myself with the area of alternative fuels, particularly solar hydrogen. This is why I spent the first 2-3 weeks mostly reading general articles in the area of the economics of alternative fuels and energy. After I was comfortable enough, me and Dr. Latham decided to go ahead and focus on a topic for the research. We decided to perform a cost analysis determining what would be the cost involved in switching to solar hydrogen as opposed to petroleum which is the currently dominating form of fuel. Due to multiple economic and practical reasons the analysis was focused on the transportation sector, particularly the use of inner city transportation buses as the first vehicles to be converted. The goal of the analysis was to determine what would be the costs associated with certain level of hydrogen use in city buses, when having to reach this particular level at a specific target year.

I really enjoyed being part of the IGERT undergrad program. This experience was entirely different from the experiences I had researching last summer, when my work mostly involved data analysis. Now I had to balance between reading articles and other literature on my topic, while doing some analyses.

I also thought that it was great how we had many activities scheduled throughout the summer. This allowed me to get more comfortable and knowledgeable with my area of research and make some friends in the process. It was also useful because I could see how my work is advancing in relation to the work of some of the other participants in the program.

Overall I thought the occasional Friday presentations were useful because they required me to organize my mind several times through the summer and essentially give me an idea on where I am standing in terms of my own work. They also helped me focus on the particular topic that I chose. Personally I also work better under pressure, and knowing you have two weeks before your next presentation is a good motivator to do your best.

Overall this summer was an extremely valuable experience for me and thanks alot for letting me be part of the program.

Erin Mcauliffe

While doing research for the summer IGERT program, I measured the minority carrier lifetimes and thicknesses of silicon wafers with silicon nitride films deposited on them before and after annealing. The purpose of this was to help determine which silicon nitride films produced the best minority carrier lifetimes. The lifetime is important because it directly impacts the efficiency of the solar cell. We determined that gaining a high minority carrier lifetime through the deposition of silicon nitride, with anneals after the deposition, but before processing is beneficial and should be done. Anneals should be done at high temperatures. Anneals are effective because they reduce the amount of surface recombination. Surface recombination reduces the minority carrier lifetime and therefore reduces the efficiency.

I really liked the IGERT program. I enjoyed the talks and visits that we did. I really learned a lot from them and was grateful that people were willing to do them. The research was also interesting. I liked doing a project that we didn't know the answer to, and having to learn how to operate the different machines. The people at IEC and Evans were helpful and nice.

Juanita Jablaone

Passivation of Silicon Solar Cell was my research topic.The passivation of silicon solar cell is important for the solar cell industry because it improves the efficiency of the cell and make it more dependable.I thought this topic to be very interesting because I learned alot of research methods and topics that are directly related to courses offer in my major.I also worked with incredibly smart people that were willing to listen and understand things from my prospective.

Marc Henderson

I participated in research with Dr. Opila this summer. I looked into solutions to fix and work with an Auger electron spectroscope, and also worked with cold cathode gauges, ion gauges, and began setting up data acquisition for the Liquid Phase Epitaxy machine. Along the way we examined tiny gold balls under an electron microscope to see if they had been cleansed properly. Overall this was a very positive experience for me. It gave me some very good people to network with. Through the IGERT program I was able to learn numerous things about where the world is going and the trends in energy and where it will be coming from in the future. The IGERT meetings where we listened to guest speakers were very beneficial parts of the program, since they gave the big picture.

Further Information

Please read about how to apply for our SURE on the following link : Apply for SURE

Looking forward to hearing from soon…