From: Phil deHaan (dehp@calvin.edu)
Date: Tue May 13 2003 - 14:01:32 EDT
May 13, 2003 == FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
In November 2002 researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory,
working with scientists at Cornell University, made an unexpected discovery
that could one day yield a full-spectrum solar cell.
Now two students from Calvin College will lend a hand to those solar cell
efforts.
Calvin engineering professor Paulo Ribeiro has received a grant of $9,000 from
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) to fund two students to study the
possibilities for this new solar cell technology, specifically its possible use
in micro satellites that would orbit Mars.
Ribeiro (who last winter was named a Fellow in the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers, a rare honor) and fellow Calvin engineering professor
Matt Heun (who used to work for JPL) will supervise two junior engineering
students: Sam Schoofs (formerly of Dubuque, Iowa and now of Grand Rapids) and
Paul Sokomba (a native of Jos, Nigeria).
Their project could have significant ramifications for space research.
Says Ribeiro: "The ability to convert virtually the full spectrum of sunlight
into energy, with efficiencies of 50 percent or higher, could revolutionize the
use of solar power for space applications."
Schoofs and Sokomba will work for 8-10 weeks this summer to evaluate the new
technology.
Both students are excited and a little apprehensive.
Says Sokomba, who after Calvin plans to go to graduate school and then return
to his native Nigeria: "I am excited about the experience this project will
give me since I will be exposed to advanced technologies and have the
opportunity to investigate and work with them. But I am also a little
overwhelmed. I'm glad that we will not be working alone but will be working
with two great professors."
Adds Schoofs: "Just being involved in a project of this magnitude is
exciting. This is an area that will likely receive increasing attention from
scientists and engineers in the years to come and it is good to be gaining
knowledge of it now. It is intimidating to be researching for companies with
such recognition as NASA and JPL. But just knowing that my work will have an
influence, however small, on this project provides an extra motivation for me
to work hard."
Their goals, says Ribeiro, will be to:
*explore the state of the art of advanced solar cells technology
*evaluate technology under Mars orbital conditions
*evaluate the impact for application to microsat power systems
*determine possible thermal and other operational and lifetime system issues
Developing solar energy in a satellite orbiting Mars will provide some
challenges not found on earth. For one Mars is some 120-150 million miles from
the sun (depending on where it is in its orbit). In contrast the earth is
about 90-95 million miles from the sun. So distance is one engineering
concern. Another is radiation.
Ribeiro, who once worked for NASA on designing power for a moon station, says
such considerations will be part of the students' research this summer,
research that will replicate real-world conditions.
"This," he says, "is some of what they (the students) might expect to be doing
once they graduate and are working as electrical engineers. They'll be doing a
lot of research and reading this summer. But they are good students. They
will do well."
What they'll be reading about has the potential to change space exploration
and solar energy on earth.
The team at Berkeley last winter discovered that a single system of alloys
incorporating indium, gallium and nitrogen can convert virtually the full
spectrum of sunlight -- from the near infrared to the far ultraviolet -- to
electrical current. If solar cells can be made with this alloy, they promise
to be rugged, relatively inexpensive -- and the most efficient ever created.
Solar cells so efficient and so relatively cheap could revolutionize the use of
solar power not just in space but on earth.
Now the theory has to be put to the test. And so Ribeiro was invited to spend
the summer at JPL working on this research project. Because of a busy schedule
of summer conferences he was not able to commit to being in California. But he
was able to convince JPL to house the project at Calvin instead, something he
says he had hoped would happen when he came to Calvin in 2000 after having
studied in his native Brazil, then England (where he earned a Ph.D.) and
finally in the United States, where he added an MBA.
See the JPL Mars site at http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/
See a big picture of Mars and micro satellites with solar panels at
http://marsnet.jpl.nasa.gov/images/images/marsnet-outpost.JPG
-end-
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