Wendy Flavell is making a difference
12 Dec 2013
I’m working to secure sustainable energy sources for a better future
I’m working in the Photon Science Institute, trying to understand how we can make solar cells cheaper or more efficient (or both!) I think the most important global challenge facing us is how we can provide for our future energy needs without wrecking our environment.
Our Sun provides far more energy than we will ever need - in fact, more energy comes from the Sun in an hour than the whole of the world uses in a year. The trouble is we use it really inefficiently - so we really must find better ways of extracting solar energy.
We are working at the moment on how we could use ‘quantum dots’ - small semiconductor clusters containing only a few hundred atoms - as the light absorbers in new solar cells. They are cheap and easy to make, but a bit unstable - so we’re working on ways in which we can make the surfaces unreactive to give them a longer lifetime. We use powerful lasers in the PSI and a number of world synchrotron sources for our work. We believe passionately in getting the messages about our future energy supply out there, so we spend time engaging and interesting anyone who will listen! You’ll usually find us on a stand at science exhibitions.
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