While much of the campus enjoys spring break, VINSE NanoGuides welcomes 50 students from three middle Tennessee high schools: Cookeville, Greenbrier, and Springfield. They’re here to take part in our Blackberry Solar Cell hands-on lab to learn how nanoscale materials affect renewable energy technologies. Students made their own dye-sensitized solar cells using blackberry juice and tested how much electrical energy their devices could produce.
The experience also included examining the materials used in their solar cells with one of VINSE鈥檚 scanning electron microscopes. Capable of magnifying objects up to 500,000 times, the instrument allowed students to visualize nanoscale features tens of thousands of times smaller than the width of a human hair and explore how these structures influence a solar cell鈥檚 ability to absorb sunlight.
Special thanks to VINSE NanoGuides working this spring break, Emma Bartelsen, Jeb Buchner, Jack Loken, Zachary Martin, Michael McNeill, Mario Ojeda Cuello, Courtney Ragle, Emanuela Riglioni, Emily Rouse, Maxwell Ugwu, and Zack Wallace, who make this hands-on learning experience engaging and impactful.
Schools interested in offering this activity to their students are encouraged to contact vinse@vanderbilt.edu for more information.