Four Students Recognized for Excellence in
Solar Energy
Four students have been named co-winners of the 2007 Global Photonic Energy Corporation Edith and Martin B. Stein Solar Energy Innovation Award. The winners of the graduate student award are Leonard Tinker, Department of Chemistry and Fan Yang *04, Department of Electrical Engineering. The undergraduate award winners are Elizabeth Dooley ’07, Woodrow Wilson School, and Charles Clarkson ’07, Electrical Engineering. The award, established in 2005, recognizes contributions relating to the science, technology, and societal issues associated with solar energy. The award is given jointly by the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials and the Princeton Environmental Institute.
Leonard Tinker is pursuing a Ph.D. in the lab of Prof. Stefan Bernhard. His work has focused on the direct photogeneration of hydrogen from sunlight by “splitting” water. Prof. Bernhard writes that “Lenny’s key insight that he could forego the use of an electron relay enabled a system which allowed him to probe the exact limiting steps of the reaction, such as the deterioration pathways of the photosensitizer. With such knowledge he was then able to synthetically tailor the chemistry of Ir(III) complexes to optimize these processes, both for efficiency as well as for robustness.” With these new complexes he was able to achieve record quantum efficiencies for hydrogen production. To further improve the process, he is now working an approach to compartmentalize the production of hydrogen and oxygen.
Fan Yang *04 is a graduate student supervised by Prof. Emeritus Stephen Forrest, working on a new class of solar cells of potential very low cost, based on organic semiconductors. His work has encompas
sed new materials growth methods, basic physical transport processes, and the actual device design and fabrication. Prof. Forrest writes that “Fan’s work on organic vapor phase deposition growth has been groundbreaking, and while organic heterojunction cells have been investigated for some time, no one previously has attempted to understand the fundamental mechanism governing their performance.” Putting the pieces of his work together, Fan has achieved a record power performance for organic solar cells. Most of his research was done at Princeton, and he is finishing his Princeton Ph.D. in absentia with Prof. Forrest at the University of Michigan.
Charles Clarkson ’07 is an Electrical Engineering major from Ontario, New York, who is also receiving a
certificate in Engineering Physics. His thesis was entitled "Optimization of Power Output for Solar Panel Arrays.” Using concepts from adaptive signal processing and control theory, he implemented new algorithms for determining in real time the best load resistance as a function of time for solar cells. This is necessary to extract the maximum output power from a solar array as the irradiation varies due to clouds, etc. His work relied on concepts s from adaptive signal processing and control theory. His advisors, Professors Clancy Rowley and Sanjeev Kulkarni, report that Charles obtained excellent results that significantly outperform the commonly-used algorithm with greater accuracy, especially under rapid changes in irradiance. In the fall of 2007, Charles will begin his Ph.D. studies at the University of Rochester.
Elizabe
th Dooley ’07 is a senior in the Woodrow Wilson School. Her senior thesis, “California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006: The Promise and Challenges of a State Initiative on Climate Change” examines in detail the myriad issues that California faces in implementing its recent Climate Change Initiative. Her thesis advisor, Hal Feiveson of The Woodrow Wilson School writes that this is a “terrific thesis examining an issue unfolding in real time” and that “Elizabeth also looked at the more general question of the degree to which states could be seen as incubators and tryouts for federal policies – a vision articulated decades ago by Justice Brandeis.” Further, Prof. Denise Mauzerall comments that “the thesis illuminates the implications that California’s success or failure will have on the attempts of other states, including New Jersey, to implement similar legislation and programs. The thesis will be of great interest to Governor Corzine’s administration.”
The selection committee for the GPEC Edith and Martin B. Stein Solar Energy Award consisted of Prof. Stephen Pacala, Director of the Princeton Environmental Institute and Prof. Jim Sturm, Director of the Princeton Institute for the Science and Technology of Materials. The award is financially supported by the Global Photonic Energy Corporation.