Tom is currently working as a Research Associate within the Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST) at Loughborough University, investigating high-resolution characterisation of Se-alloyed CdTe PV devices. Tom recently successfully defended his PhD thesis entitled “The effects of chlorine and selenium in cadmium telluride solar cells” after undertaking research under the supervision of SuperSolar Director, Prof Mike Walls, funded by the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in New and Sustainable Photovoltaics. Tom was recently awarded the 2020 Institute of Physics Ion and Plasma Surface Interactions Group Thesis Prize, awarded for the year's most outstanding PhD thesis in the field.
Even though Tom has only recently completed his PhD, he can already point to his work on correlative NanoSIMS and cathodoluminescence measurements being featured as the cover article in the prestigious journal Nature Energy (find the article here). This research, undertaken in combination with colleagues at Durham, Oxford and Colorado State University in the USA, has improved understanding the role of selenium in cadmium telluride solar cells, and has been rapidly picking up citations over the past year. The paper also prompted First Solar Inc to remark upon the findings with a technical note in the same journal commenting that the work “opens up new opportunities for device characterization and design”.
After the article was published Tom received invitations to present his work at several meetings, including the annual SuperSolar organised IoP Advances in Photovoltaics meeting and at the prestigious, industry-led CdTe workshop at Sichuan University in China, both held in late 2019. Tom has also presented his research findings at 29th Asian PV Science and Engineering Conference (PVSEC), and at the IEEE Photovoltaics Specialists Conference (PVSC) in the US in each of the four years of his PhD, attending with the help of support from the SuperSolar Conference Fund.
Tom has had significant interaction with SuperSolar activities in recent years, attending and presenting at the annual SuperSolar Technical Meeting, attending the SuperSolar Workshop on PV Materials and Characterisation, as well as benefiting from a 3 month secondment at Colorado State University making devices using CSU’s in-line deposition system, in a project enabled through by the SuperSolar I&I Fund.