Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Hello World

You may have already noticed the appearence of two new names on the sidebar<-- And as one of the new contributors to this sporadically solar energy oriented blog, I thought I'd begin with a Hello and a brief introduction. Right now I am in the cleanroom, which is quite different from just any ordinary clean room. The cleanroom is a particle-controlled (and temperature/humidity they claim) environment common to most who work in microelectronics or thin film processing. Essentially, it's just very very clean. I am a phd student, and I do most of my work in this clean room. That takes up about half of my day; the other being spent sifting through articles or my own data for something of value. Like the originator of the blog, I am working with CIGS solar cells at the Ångstrom Solar Center, a research group within the division of Solid State Electronics, a part of the department of Engineering Sciences of the University of Uppsala. You see? It's all a big mess, at least when you try ordering anything by mail. 4 out of 5 packages end up at the division of Electricity research, or maybe Solid State physics or.. (wow, I am digressing rapidly..).
As a phd student I am working on any and most aspects regarding solar modules, or solar panels; i.e. the medium-to-large scale arrangement of solar cells for electricity production. By any and most I refer to such things as: interconnection of cells, patterning of thin films, isolation and edge deletion, encapsulation, long-term stability, climate testing and stability, etc. etc. At some point these things may be adressed and explained on this blog.
I also work part-time as a development engineer for a (ok, I'm gonna introduce another word here: Photovoltaic, which is the word I prefer to use for our type of electricity generating solar cells and modules, since the word means just this; electricity from light. The word is often abbreviated PV) PV startup company called Solibro. This puts me in touch with reality in a welcome and interesting way, as I get insight in what different challenges need to be adressed when you go from making a few sqare cm's of cells in a week, to making 1000 squar m's a day.
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The rest of my time is divided between The Girl, Photography, Tv-series, Music and Videogames. Roughly. I try to squeeze in things like eating and drinking as often as I can but you know how it is. I've been an occasional blogger for a while now, sometimes writing journal entries and sometimes just spitting out quotes that I like or uploading pictures. The ambition here is to write about PV and energy in a relaxed but interesting way, and hopefully in a way that is accessible to most people who are interested. If any readers have questions, I'd be happy to try my best at answering.
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So, Hello everybody!
/Per-Oskar

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