Achievement

The Economics Marketing + Strategy course introduces the importance of integrating sound business principles in the academic environment. One IGERT student investigates the addition of silver nanoparticles to surface of silicon based solar cells to enhance efficiency. The deposition process + the use of precious metal seems like poor method of decreasing costs. Using accepted principles and Zweibel's analysis, we predict the materials cost for our process to be well under $0.50/m^2. So long as our silver nanoparticle enhanced solar cells have an efficiency increase greater than 1 %, they should be economically viable.