1. CDT in New and Sustainable PV
Experimental Methods Module
Introduction
Prof David Lidzey

2. Welcome to Sheffield!

3. Course objectives
• Provide you with a firm grounding in at
least 7 practical areas that will be of use
in your PhD research.
• Understand how to synthesize ideas
from the literature.
• Encourage you to work together
collaboratively.
• Help develop your practical skills.
• Have fun!

4. Course structure
• First two days: lectures on
experimental techniques and
statistical analysis.
• Remainder of the course: practical
work using a range of experimental
techniques.
• Two days set aside for you to write-
up your results.
• Statistics workshop.

5. Course timetable
Time Monday
12th Jan
Tuesday
13th Jan
Wednesday
14th Jan
Thursday
15th Jan
Friday
16th Jan
Morning
(09:00– 12:30)
Lectures1 Lectures3 Labrotationday1 Labrotationday2 Labrotationday3
Lunch
(12:30– 13:30)
Afternoon
(13:30– 17:30)
Lectures2
Literature
Assignment 1
Lectures4
Literature
Assignment 2
Labrotationday1 Labrotationday2 Labrotationday3
Time Monday
17th Jan
Tuesday
18th Jan
Wednesday
19th Jan
Thursday
20th Jan
Friday
21th Jan
Morning
(09:00– 12:30)
PrivateStudy
Labwrite-up
Labrotationday4 Labrotationday5 PrivateStudy
Labwrite-up
Statistics
workshop
Lunch
(12:30– 13:30)
Afternoon
(13:30– 17:30)
PrivateStudy
Labwrite-up
Labrotationday4 Labrotationday5 PrivateStudy
Labwrite-up
Courseend

6. Lectures
Monday 12th January
• 09:30 – 11:00: High-vacuum; techniques and
instrumentation: Alastair Buckley
• 11:30 – 12:30: Optical microscopy and image analysis: Rob
Masters
• 13:30 – 15:00: Statistical methods: Matt Mears
Tuesday 13th January
• 09:00 – 10:30: Atomic Force Microscopy: Jamie Hobbs
• 11:00 – 12:30: UV-Vis optical spectroscopy: David Lidzey
• 13:30 – 15:00: Raman spectroscopy: Mark Geoghegan

7. Assignments
• Today and tomorrow, there is a literature review assignment that must be
completed by the end of each day. You have 90 minutes to do this.
• Log onto Web of Science (http://apps.webofknowledge.com/ ), and perform
a literature search to identify two high-impact papers from the literature
that have used one of the experimental-techniques discussed in the
morning’s lectures.
• Write a brief summary of each paper you have chosen (not more than 250
words per paper), describing the main findings of the work, and discussing
how the technique was used to that study the particular material system.
• Then compare how the techniques were used in the two papers, and
identify similarities or differences in the experimental approaches (not
more than 150 words).

8. Experimental lab rotations
• Raman Spectroscopy
• UV-Vis spectroscopy
• Optical and Atomic Force Microscopy
• High vacuum system and residual
gas analysis
• Thin film preparation and metrology
• Statistics Workshop

9. Experimental Rotations
• You will undertake the experiments in a
small group of three students. You are free
to choose who you want to work with.
Rotationday1 Rotationday2 Rotationday3 Rotationday4 Rotationday5
Group1 Experiment A Experiment E Experiment D Experiment C Experiment B
Group2 Experiment B Experiment A Experiment E Experiment D Experiment C
Group3 Experiment C Experiment B Experiment A Experiment E Experiment D
Group4 Experiment D Experiment C Experiment B Experiment A Experiment E
Group5 Experiment E Experiment D Experiment C Experiment B Experiment A

10. Lab Rotation assignments
• You and your group will each do 5 lab
rotations.
• After the first 3 experiments, you get
a ‘free-day’, where you should make
formal write-up of one of the
experiments undertaken.
• You then do a further 2 experiments.
You then have to write a further one
experiment.

11. All work to be submitted by
MOLE

12. Marking
• All work will be marked.
• Literature assignments 1 and 2 each
carry 5 points (maximum).
• Lab write-up 1 and 2 each carry 10
points maximum.
• Total mark / 30.

13. Video diary
• We would like you to make a short
video about one of the experiments
that you are working on. This should
briefly describe the experiment and
provide hints and tips for other
students who will work on it.
• Please upload this onto MOLE.
• This is not assessed.

14. Locations
• UV-Vis, Optical microscopy and
Vacuum experiments located in the
3rd
year lab.
• Thin-film deposition and metrology,
and Raman experiment located in 2nd
year lab.
• AFM experiment in lab C28 (to be
supervised by Jonny Burns and
Stephen Jackson.
• Computers available in second-year

15. Meals and entertainment
• Coffee and tea, and lunch will be
provided today and tomorrow only.
• For the rest of the course, you are
expected to find your own lunch.
• This evening, we will have some
drinks in ‘Brewdog’ on Division
street, then go for a curry at ‘Butlers
Balti House’ on Broad Lane.