I would be so appreciate for any suggestions you can give to me!!!
When I was young, I always use the water that heated by the solar water heater to take a shower. I was curious and my parents told me that the water is heated by the sun power. I did some reading and found out that the water heater only transfers a tiny amount of energy generated by the sun. I started to get interested in solar energy. In high school, I began to think about having a career in solar energy because the oil shortage and global warming appeared all the time on the news. However, I was already a Junior in the college when I really began to dig into solar energy.
The difference between Chinese and American languages and culture made it difficult to adjust my first two years. After sophomore year began, I tried to focus on preparation and review for my classes. By joining The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers student chapter, I got more chances to get in touch with American students and learned more about electrical engineering. I also joined a student club founded by Chinese students. We held Annual Chinese Basketball Game which more than ten universities join every year. I enhanced both team work and leadership skills through the year and got promoted to be a member of the exclusive team the next year. Since the sophomore year, I tried to do a self-evaluation every couple of days before going to bed. This self-evaluation helped me to make a better use of my time. By the time became a Junior, everything was brought on the right track again and I began to prepare for graduate school.
The undergraduate study of Electrical Engineering includes a wide range of fields, such as, communication, signal processing and solid state. However, being an undergraduate student restricts me to seek deeper. Pursuing graduate school would provide me such a circumstance that I am able to do research in the area I am interested in. I also think my age is the best time of learning. I wish to assimilate as much as I can with the most efficient way. After taking classes and researching, I found out that I am interested in photovoltaic and nano-engineering which have relation with solar cells.
In the second year of my engineering studies I was introduced to the subject of Solid State Electronics. It was a great course where I understood the flow of electrons in the solar cells. Being interested in the course, I got interact with Dr. Cloutier, who introduced thin film solar cell to me. This was the first time I took a deep look into solar cell. I also took Energy System class which helped me to understand the renewable energy and the energy flow within the country.
I worked on the transparent and conducting layer of the thin film solar cell with Dr. Cloutier as my supervisor. Both transparency and conductivity are critical to the efficiency of solar cell. ITO and CTO are generally being used nowadays. I measured the resistivity of ITO generally used in our lab is 48 ohm and transparency is 90%. Silver is known to have one of the best conductivity among the materials. Then using silver nanowire mesh may achieve a better result. During the experiment, I found out the nanowire layer has a higher uniformity as well as concentration by using deep coating than spin coating. Annealing was also necessary because it could melt the silver nanowires in order to reduce the number of nanowire layers at the intersection point which brought a significant drop on resistivity. I found out the best combination of transparency and conductivity of silver nanowire mesh so far was 25 ohm of resistivity with 85% of transparency. Another advantage of silver nanowire mesh is that silver obtains a good mechanical property like flexibility and ductility. Future solar cell design can use all these properties to make extendable device.
XXXX University is the one I want to be admitted the most among all the colleges I have applied. The large size of the campus and huge research funding provide more resources for me to access. I am really interested in the thin film because it is great to achieve different functionalities on tiny thickness. In addition, I want to choose solar cell as my future career and I think thin film solar cell has a bright future in the market. Therefore, XXXX university would help me to prepare for it.
I am confident that XXXX University is the right place where I could build my solid career foundation. I believe that with my now developed determination, I will be successful in my study and research. I hope you honored admission committee will give my application favorable consideration.
