CDT in New and Sustainable PV Experimental Methods Module

IntroductionProf David Lidzey

Welcome to Sheffield!

Course objectives

• Provide you with a firm grounding in at least 7 practical areas that will be of use in your PhD research.

• Understand how to synthesize ideas from the literature.

• Encourage you to work together collaboratively.

• Help develop your practical skills.• Have fun!

Course structure

• First two days: lectures on experimental techniques and statistical analysis.

• Remainder of the course: practical work using a range of experimental techniques.

• Two days set aside for you to write-up your results.

• Statistics workshop.

Course timetableTime Monday

12th JanTuesday13th Jan

Wednesday14th Jan

Thursday15th Jan

Friday16th Jan

Morning(09:00– 12:30)

Lectures1 Lectures3 Labrotationday1 Labrotationday2 Labrotationday3

Lunch(12:30– 13:30)Afternoon(13:30– 17:30)

Lectures2LiteratureAssignment 1

Lectures4LiteratureAssignment 2

Labrotationday1 Labrotationday2 Labrotationday3

Time Monday17th Jan

Tuesday18th Jan

Wednesday19th Jan

Thursday20th Jan

Friday21th Jan

Morning(09:00– 12:30)

PrivateStudyLabwrite-up

Labrotationday4 Labrotationday5 PrivateStudyLabwrite-up

Statisticsworkshop

Lunch(12:30– 13:30)Afternoon(13:30– 17:30)

PrivateStudyLabwrite-up

Labrotationday4 Labrotationday5 PrivateStudyLabwrite-up

Courseend

LecturesMonday 12th January

• 09:30 – 11:00: High-vacuum; techniques and instrumentation: Alastair Buckley

• 11:30 – 12:30: Optical microscopy and image analysis: Rob Masters

• 13:30 – 15:00: Statistical methods: Matt Mears

Tuesday 13th January

• 09:00 – 10:30: Atomic Force Microscopy: Jamie Hobbs • 11:00 – 12:30: UV-Vis optical spectroscopy: David Lidzey• 13:30 – 15:00: Raman spectroscopy: Mark Geoghegan

Assignments

• Today and tomorrow, there is a literature review assignment that must be completed by the end of each day. You have 90 minutes to do this.

• Log onto Web of Science (http://apps.webofknowledge.com/ ), and perform a literature search to identify two high-impact papers from the literature that have used one of the experimental-techniques discussed in the morning’s lectures.

 • Write a brief summary of each paper you have chosen (not more than 250

words per paper), describing the main findings of the work, and discussing how the technique was used to that study the particular material system.

• Then compare how the techniques were used in the two papers, and identify similarities or differences in the experimental approaches (not more than 150 words).

Experimental lab rotations

• Raman Spectroscopy • UV-Vis spectroscopy• Optical and Atomic Force Microscopy• High vacuum system and residual

gas analysis • Thin film preparation and metrology• Statistics Workshop

Experimental Rotations• You will undertake the experiments in a

small group of three students. You are free to choose who you want to work with.

Rotationday1 Rotationday2 Rotationday3 Rotationday4 Rotationday5Group1 Experiment A Experiment E Experiment D Experiment C Experiment BGroup2 Experiment B Experiment A Experiment E Experiment D Experiment CGroup3 Experiment C Experiment B Experiment A Experiment E Experiment DGroup4 Experiment D Experiment C Experiment B Experiment A Experiment EGroup5 Experiment E Experiment D Experiment C Experiment B Experiment A

Lab Rotation assignments

• You and your group will each do 5 lab rotations.

• After the first 3 experiments, you get a ‘free-day’, where you should make formal write-up of one of the experiments undertaken.

• You then do a further 2 experiments. You then have to write a further one experiment.

All work to be submitted by MOLE

Marking

• All work will be marked.• Literature assignments 1 and 2 each

carry 5 points (maximum).• Lab write-up 1 and 2 each carry 10

points maximum.

• Total mark / 30.

Video diary

• We would like you to make a short video about one of the experiments that you are working on. This should briefly describe the experiment and provide hints and tips for other students who will work on it.

• Please upload this onto MOLE.• This is not assessed.

Locations

• UV-Vis, Optical microscopy and Vacuum experiments located in the 3rd year lab.

• Thin-film deposition and metrology, and Raman experiment located in 2nd year lab.

• AFM experiment in lab C28 (to be supervised by Jonny Burns and Stephen Jackson.

• Computers available in second-year lab for write-ups and assignments.

Meals and entertainment

• Coffee and tea, and lunch will be provided today and tomorrow only.

• For the rest of the course, you are expected to find your own lunch.

• This evening, we will have some drinks in ‘Brewdog’ on Division street, then go for a curry at ‘Butlers Balti House’ on Broad Lane.