What is graduate school like? How is it different from other schooling?

Graduate school is like no other beast. In the sciences, you both do research and take classes. When you start out, you are mostly taking classes but, as you progress, you do more and more research with fewer to no classes. By the time you graduate, there is little difference between being a graduate student and being a postdoc or research scientist. It is a transition and learning period. By the end, you are the world expert on the topic of your research. Answers are not in the back of a textbook or online. You make your own questions.

National Science Foundation

You may notice the NSF logo on our blog. That stands for the National Science Foundation. The National Science Foundation funds the research that we do. They are a government organization that funds a large portion of federally-supported basic research. Basic research is important because it provides the fundamentals from which technologies are made. For example, without Michael Faraday's fundamental research into electricity and magnetism, we wouldn't have the electric motor and a wide variety of electric and/or magnetic appliances. We also wouldn't have cell phones and the entire telecommunications industry. Einstein also did fundamental, state-sponsored research that has fed into a wide variety of disciplines including the computer that you use to read this website. In order for companies to put money into developing a product, there first needs to be basic research to give them a reason to put money in a given direction. Without basic research, there is no fundamentally new technology. At the same time, basic research tends to be a high-risk/high-reward scenario. Not all basic research pays off and we generally do not know at the onset what will pay off and what will not.

If you are interested in learning more about the NSF, check out their Tumblr, facebook, or website.

The Next Big Thing?

Periodically, science stories hit the news. Universities have PR departments churning out press releases (articles about current research). Researchers also must publish their findings in scientific journals (this is what is meant with the phrase "publish or perish"). In order to get funding, scientists need to communicate the value of their work to the public. 

We see these stories in the news, get excited, and most of the time, nothing comes of it. Why?

There are a variety of reasons. There is an entire subset of science that focuses on "proofs of concept". The systems described in these studies aren't necessarily ready for commercialization. For example, lead-based piezoelectric materials perform great and could do a lot of good if we could put materials with similar piezoelectric properties in the human body. Unfortunately, they contain lead, a poison. A recent article in Time magazine discussed a method of turning solar energy into liquid fuel. Unfortunately, the cell described was only ~1 % efficient. Since commercial solar cells are often ~10-20 % efficient, this technology is nowhere near ready for prime time. The scientists state this. For transportation uses, it would be nice to have liquid transportation fuel (quicker re-fueling, large volume and mass energy densities), so it is seeking a worthy goal and, for technology using bacteria to produce fuel, it is a major step forward.That being said, there is a long way to go. As it currently stands, it is more difficult to see how this technology will catch up to solar cell with battery technologies. It captures the imagination and could play a role in the future. In the image above from Bell Laboratories of the 1950s, solar cells were a similarly raw technology not ready for commercialization. They have only recently became competitive with fossil fuels in many areas. No one knows what the future will bring. Even technologies that do not make it can spur on other technologies and innovations. For example, research into conducting polymers and dye-sensitized solar cells has really helped research into perovskite solar cells. Many technologies that "don't make it" benefit the development of still other technologies, either by capturing the imagination of future and current researchers or by adding to facts and data known. Somehow, an interest in cosmology when I was 10 led to me now studying materials that are useful for engineers here on Earth. While the real-world benefits of cosmology are not readily apparent outside of a science fiction, the ability of the field to inspire researchers and get people thinking of new and creative things cannot be discounted and really is an asset to the scientific community.

How did you get interested in science?

As a kid, I always enjoyed building things and seeing how things worked. I also had major softball and basketball obsessions. Some of my scientist friends grew up with a love of photography, music, or dance. We all had mentors and role models (some more official than others) who nurtured our curiosity and guided our interests. For a period of time, I was obsessed with MacGyver, a tv show in which the Angus MacGyver, a freelancer, gets all sorts of people out of extreme situations using only the items around him (duct tape, a swiss army knife, a shoe string, and his wits). It was an adventure show that featured creative problem solving.

It looks like they are trying to create a new MacGyver-like show to highlight the exciting things that can be done with a science and engineering background. Check out the website! Pitch an idea for the new show!

Who are some of your heroes and role models? How did you get interested in science and engineering?

Thinking about becoming an engineer?

Check out this website for good advice for finding good colleges, getting into school, and learning what engineers do.

Welcome Topaz Solar Farms!

Photo credit: MidAmerican Solar

Check out this link to learn about Topaz Solar Farms, the newly-created largest solar farm in the world, created by First Solar! The solar cells used in this are based on CdTe, another thin-film solar cell technology. This farm is designed to deliver 550 MW of power to the grid.

What are common things solar cells can be found on? Can solar cells charge a reusable battery?

Source: Tower Sign and Signal

Solar cells can and are used to charge reusable batteries. For example, you see this in solar cars. One of the limitations of solar photovoltaics is that they produce energy when the sun is shining and produce none without light. This could be a problem at night if you don't have any other energy sources or ways of storing the energy produced during the day. If we transitioned to mostly solar energy in the larger electric grid, this could be a problem if batteries can't store energy generated during the day for use at night.

Check out this article to find out more about it!

Solar cells are found on many things. You may be most familiar with solar calculators (the calculators that do not run out of batteries--note that, even indoors, they generate electricity since they are still receiving light, albeit not usually as bright as that seen outside). Solar cells are now used to power road signs and some traffic lights. They are also found in garden lights and other outdoor lighting. Emergency phones in remote places often also have solar cells to cut down on the cost of sending electricity to those places. You can use solar cells to charge your electronic devices. People and businesses are now starting to install solar cells on their buildings/houses in order to reduce their energy costs. Satellites also often use solar cells for power. Solar cells are found on an increasingly wide array of things!

Solar battery!

Credit: Yiying Wu, The Ohio State University

The world's first solar battery has been invented! It recharges itself using air and light.

Read more about Ohio State's research here or here!
Their work was recently published in Nature Communications entitled "Integrating a redox-coupled dye-sensitized photo electrode into a lithium-pxygen battery for photoassisted charging", DOI: 10.1038/ncomms6111.

EIA Energy Kids

Check out this informative website about energy by EIA! 

EIA Energy Kids

Since power is typically transmitted as AC (alternating) current over long distances, but solar cells would seem to generate DC (direct) current, do solar farms convert the current from DC to AC first? Alternatively, if panels are installed on a house, can everything remain DC?

Photo from abb.com, original from Edward Csanyi of Electrical Engineering Portal

Solar energy must interface with existing power systems. Alternating current is used for transmission because there are fewer losses because it is very easy to transform between different voltages. Heat is dissipated when large currents heat wires, increasing their resistance. With an AC signal, currents can be kept low by transmitting high-voltage signals, decreasing losses. 

Solar cells do not produce a consistent amount of energy throughout the day. Additionally, they produce little energy at night when one often needs electricity. Consequently, the energy from the solar cell must be either stored in a battery or fed back into the grid. It is more common to feed the energy back into the grid as an AC signal due to existing payment schemes and challenges/costs and safety risks associated with storing large amounts of energy. Since these solar cells are connected to the larger power grid, the DC signal that the solar cells produce must be converted to an AC signal.

Furthermore, since many household appliances are designed to operate with an AC signal, it would not be feasible to completely remove a house from the grid and operate the building on DC energy. Already, since computers run on DC signals, you need an AC to DC converter. If one switched to all DC circuits, one would need DC to AC converters. Since most of what we have now either relies on an AC signal or has an incorporated AC to DC converter, it would be expensive to switch to DC electronics. 

Transparent Solar Cells?

From http://spectrum.ieee.org

Can solar power go transparent? Apparently! Read more about Michigan State University's work on transparent luminescent solar concentrators here!

Global Experiment 2014

Since 2014 is the international year of crystallography, the
Global Experiment 2014 concerns crystal growth! The Global Experiment project is aimed at students aged between 7 and 16 years, working with their teachers to learn how to dissolve different materials, to grow crystals and to investigate the effects of changing various environmental conditions.

The Global Experiment 2014 is organized by Royal Society of Chemistry and International Union of Crystallography.

Solar Decathlon

Every second year Solar Decathlon takes place. It's an international competition presented by the U.S. Department of Energy and organized by National Renewable Energy Laboratory. The competition challenges teams to design, build and operate solar-powered houses that are cost-effective, energy-efficient and attractive. Read more and follow the preparations for the next Solar Decathlon next year here!

Coming to a seashore near you: Clean waterways using the sun!

Photo courtesy Andrew David Thaler

Check out this technology! There are at least one billion tons of plastic in the ocean. Wouldn't it be great to be able to collect this plastic before it gets to the ocean and is more difficult to clean up?

This solar-powered water wheel may be used to clean debris from water and can transfer this debris to a barge. Check out this site for more information!

P.S.: I just came across this video. It's good for a laugh.

TED talks solar

Check out these interesting TED talks on solar power!

1. Donald Sadoway, Professor of Materials Chemistry at MIT


2. Sanjit 'Bunker' Roy, founder of Barefoot College


3. Bill Gross, founder of Idealab


Recommended by Community Renewable Energy.

Light Up Nigeria!

Check out this video about what solar energy has been able to do in Nigeria!

Happy 4th of July!

It's the 4th of July and perhaps a good time to fresh up your potassium nitrate knowledge?!

That's, at least, what NSF thinks and hence, nominates potassium nitrate to the crystal of the week!

The crystal-of-the-week initiative is a celebration of the International Year of Crystallography which is THIS year!

Motivating squares!

I find these three squares very motivating!

They represent the area that would be enough for solar power plants to produce a quantity of electricity consumed by the world, in Europe (EU-25) and Germany (De) according to data provided by the German Aerospace Center in 2005 within the project Desertec. Read more about this interesting project and their current activities here!

Solar Impulse

From www.hashslush.com

Have you heard about the Swiss Solar Impulse project? If not – read about it and follow the project activities here. Their aim is to develop an aircraft that uses only solar power! And they have already come pretty far!

I'm a scientist. Is science fun?

I just found this really cool site where scientists from all different disciplines are interviewed. Check it out! Also, check out this video, where scientists are interviewed about what excites them about science.

For me, I like learning stuff. I like gathering information and strategizing how to get more information about the real world. Although the contributions of an individual scientist are often small, I like contributing to something larger that can have real benefits to society, in general. I find science to be a lot of fun. It is like a real-life mystery novel.