• Question: what made you work in a chemistry lab making molecules to use in electrical devices and solar cells?

    Asked by poppymaileysayzhi to Nicholas on 7 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Nicholas Pearce

      Nicholas Pearce answered on 7 Nov 2015:

      Hello Poppy,

      Towards the end of my degree it was time to start thinking about what job I would want to do after I’d finished, so I went to a careers event one day where there was a scientist from the lab I work in now who described the research that went on there.

      It was about nanotechnology and what was going on at the moment and I found it really interesting, so I asked the professor who ran the lab if i could work for him. I spent the last year of my degree in that lab and really enjoyed it: the professor was a nice guy, the other scientists were all laid back and friendly, it was a great place to work! So I asked if I could carry on working there after I finished my degree, and that’s how I became a scientist.

      The research that gets done usually starts off as an idea from the professor in charge of the lab, but then can change direction if a new or unexpected property comes up and that’s how I ended up working on solar cell molecules. One day I did a reaction and it found that it turned a colourless molecule into a nice coloured one. A few more experiments and I discovered that this colourful molecule could gain electrons much more easily than before. These two things made it an ideal molecule for solar energy research and that’s where I am now.

      Check on this youtube channel in a few weeks:
      https://www.youtube.com/user/TheRoyalInstitution/videos
      The professor in charge of my lab (a guy called Neil Champness) recently gave a talk about nanotechnology that should get posted there soon, it might inspire you the way that first talk inspired me, who knows?

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