Roya Maboudian (Advisor)

In recent years, the photovoltaic market has grown significantly as module prices have continued to come down. Continued growth of the field requires higher efficiency modules at lower manufacturing costs. In particular, higher efficiencies reduce the area needed for a given power output, thus reducing the downstream balance of systems costs that scale with area such as mounting frames, installation, and soft costs. Cells and modules made from III-V materials have the highest demonstrated efficiencies to date but are not yet at the cost level of other thin film technologies, which...

In the past couple of decades we have seen remarkable advances in the integration of biological systems with artificial ones. Our knowledge of both of these worlds has grown exponentially, and in particular our knowledge of the human body. In recent years we have been able to understand and treat diseases we never thought we would, and we have even been able to interface with the body to restore lost functions. Direct interaction with the human brain to read and write information to it has been achieved thanks to the...