During the 2nd semester of my freshman year, I had the opportunity to develop a research project with a small group of 2 fellow chemistry students, 3 including myself. The objective was to conduct research that focused on the impact of perovskites, which are a class of chemical compounds with a similar structure to that of CaTiO₃ by definition, but more importantly possess favorable photovoltaic properties at a fraction of the cost of most prevailing silicon-based solar cells. Due to progressive developments in solar technology, with respect to the use of perovskites, the class tasked students with conducting research on how to possibly improve upon the leading compound in the world of perovskites, which is a methylammonium lead halide perovskite. As the chemical name so subtly suggests, there is a presence of lead in the most optimal solar cells that utilize perovskite technology, which poses an obvious toxicity hazard to people that handle the technicalities of installing the hardware to locations.
Faced with one of the first real-world applications of chemistry as a student, the entirety of the project was rewarding in its ability to foster the growth of independent creative thought, professional collaborative work, and production of feasible, or somewhat meaningful, results in a real laboratory environment. However, the difficulty of creating a scientific investigation into the future of solar cells was humbling, especially in the amount of individual research that was required to handle the information of the industry and implement relevant concepts into our project. Having struggled to establish a cohesive first draft, which was accepted without significant revisions, there was a notable feeling of excitement from the success, as well as the opportunity to work under our own initiative. Furthermore, completing the work and having the opportunity to present it to Dr. Moga and the entire lab group was an excellent experience in the communication of scientific research. Overall, the journey of experiment synthesis and completion was a useful foray into the complexities of working in the scientific community, and will serve to ground myself in the expectations of my future work in the technical field of dentistry. Finally, the presentation of my groups specific research will be provided in the form of a link at the bottom of this entry, wherein there are summarized descriptions of all the new experimental techniques our group learned and the results we calculated for analysis.