PhD in the Applied Science & Technology Program at the University of California, Berkeley
or: PhD in AS&T at UC Berkeley
My PhD at UC Berkeley was in the aptly named “Applied Science & Technology” program, which is Berkeley’s version of an Applied Physics, or Engineering Science degree. This degree allows full freedom of thesis topics and courses, which is perfect for my eclectic choice of research topics.
I did this research in the laboratory of Prof. Xiang Zhang, who was at the Mechanical Engineering department at Berkeley. I was also for a year affiliated with Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, via a joint research grant called the LMI-EFRC, which was in conjunction with Caltech and UIUC.
I was also on an external Fellowship, the NDSEG Fellowship, sponsored by the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (2008-2011), which allowed me unbridled control of my own research projects.
While I initially joined the Zhang lab to do work on the Optical Activation of Neurons (to get a bio-neuro perspective of Science), I eventually switched topics to Solar Cells (renewable energy), and received my thesis in the theoretical analysis of solar cell technologies.
There are two separate pages here for each of the major projects I worked on. Publications are listed separately.
Neuroscience:
The first topic was the optical activation of neurons. Using a unique optically activated molecule, we were able to modulate the firing output of Purkinje neurons in cerebellar brains slices. This project combines fundamental Neuroscience with analysis techniques from Electrical Engineering.
Click here for images and further details.
Solar Cells:
My second topic involved improving the efficiency of solar energy conversion using solid-state solar cells, combined with nanotechnology. We both analyzed the thermodynamic limits of 3rd generation solar cell concepts, as well as experimentally tested one of these concepts.
Click here for further details.