Trishelle Copeland-Johnson
Graduate Student 2013-2016
Education: Bachelor’s of Science in Chemical Engineering, University of South Florida
Thesis Topic/Title: Development of Perovskite-Based Photovoltaic Cells for Extraterrestrial Energy Generation
Thesis Description: Photovoltaic energy has begun to play a much larger role in diversifying energy generation on a global scale. As the technology evolves to accommodate future applications, new materials are investigated for incorporation into existing and future solar cells devices. Organometallic halide perovskites have recently been explored as new addition to third-generation or thin-film solar cells. Devices incorporating the material have recently been documented as exhibiting a cell efficiency of 20.1%, a stark contrast to their debut efficiency of around 3.9% in 2009. Such rapid improvement has spurred a phenomenon in the photovoltaic cell community to learn more about the perovskites’ contribution to such high-performance devices. There are also opportunities to research means of improving the commercial viability of the material by addressing issues of degradation due to environmental changes, particularly humidity and temperature. My research will look into uncovering more about how the material properties of the perovskites change in response to exposure to different environments, both terrestrial and extraterrestrial, and integrate that knowledge into optimizing the performance and operational lifetime of devices. In turn, these devices will contribute to a new generation of thin-film photovoltaic cells to produce energy for spacecraft in future space exploration missions.
Contact: tcopelan@udel.edu
Other fun facts or hobbies: I enjoy reading, playing softball, baking, writing short stories, watching anime, reading comic books, and playing video games!