Daniel Johns graduated in the spring of 2010 from South Dakota State University majoring in Electronics Engineering Technology (EET). Last summer he was selected to conduct research in the lab of SDSU Professor Dr. XingZhong Yan. The project is aimed solving existing problems that are present with Organic Solar Cells which are; low efficiency, low stability and low strength compared to inorganic photovoltaic cells. They proposed to use new hole-transporters. These new hole-transporters include modified electronically conducting conjugated polymers. Daniel worked on the materials processing and fabricated solar cells based on these new materials. This work was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, SD EPSCoR, and the State of South Dakota.

Daniel using the CVC Thermal Evaporating system.

 

Picture of solar cells after layers of materials were
evaporated onto the ITO substrates consecutively.