Amy Neild

• BSc (Hons) Physics
• Degradation in new photovoltaic technologies: how do devices fail?

Sunlight, or solar energy, is a clean, renewable source of energy that is extremely important at this moment in time, as climate change is occurring, demand for energy is rising and non-renewable energy resources are running out. However, it can be expensive to manufacture high efficiency solar panels that can tackle this problem. A new type of material called a perovskite can be used to make very high efficiency solar cells. They are extremely simple and inexpensive to produce, however a big challenge for perovskite solar cells is their stability and understanding how they fail. Over the course of 8 weeks I will set up and program an instrument to control the degradation conditions and monitor the solar cell parameters in real-time. I will then investigate what can cause the device to degrade, which will help in creating a sustainable perovskite solar cell.

Funding source: Newcastle University

Supervisor: Dr Pablo Docampo