Dr. John Colton’s Sabbatical to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory
In January 2023, Dr. John Colton left for a six-month sabbatical in Golden, Colorado at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which does leading research on developing clean and sustainable energy technology. The focus of the sabbatical was to develop new collaborations, funding opportunities, and learn more about a research area that he had previously not explored: using terahertz radiation to probe the chiral properties of hybrid perovskite materials.
Hybrid perovskite materials are semiconductors made by layering organic and inorganic materials. Phonons in perovskites can be excited by the absorption of terahertz frequency light, and in chiral perovskites--ones where the organic molecules have chirality--it is believed that the phonons can also have chirality, i.e. a rotational polarization which can interact with electrons and affect their spins. Perovskite materials are easy to fabricate, have great charge-carrying capabilities, and excellent light absorption properties, so they have lots of promise and could improve next-generation solar cells. This has the potential to transform the renewable energy sources available and allow for the development of industry-scalable, low-cost, terawatt-scale solar panels. Researchers at NREL have been at the forefront in perovskite material research since it took off in 2016, and Dr. Colton is excited to be involved in such revolutionary research and develop new skills in using terahertz radiation.
Dr. Colton and the researchers he collaborated with faced many difficulties during the sabbatical while they were developing these technologies, such as having their laser break, needing new polarization filters, and understaffing issues. Notwithstanding, Dr. Colton and his new collaborators made a lot of progress during the sabbatical. Their research has continued past the official end of the sabbatical. Dr. Colton went back in September 2023 to collect more data with new equipment. He and his student research assistants are now analyzing the data and are optimistic about possible breakthroughs in solar cell technology.
While on sabbatical, Dr. Colton had the opportunity to work with leading researchers in the field, including Matt Beard, a fellow BYU graduate, NREL scientist, and the director of the DOE-funded Center for Hybrid Organic Inorganic Semiconductors for Energy (CHOISE) consortium. In Dr. Colton’s opinion, the most important part of the sabbatical was the new connections with researchers at NREL, Duke, and University of Kentucky.
Student Authors: Jordan Grow, Mitchell Cutler, Tanner Manwaring, Michael Peterson
Edited by Brian Anderson
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