Caitlin McDowell

Caitlin McDowell
Graduate Student Researcher
Chemistry Department

Office Location

2520 PSBN

Specialization

Characterization and structure-property relationships of organic photovoltaic materials

Bio

I graduated from Tufts University in 2008 with a B.S. in Chemistry and Physics, with an emphasis in fluorescence phenomena. After graduation, I worked as laboratory manager for Prof. Timothy Swager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for four years. The Swager group specializes in chemical sensors, using functionalized polymer and carbon nanostructures. As laboratory manager, I was responsible for maintaining the lab infrastructure, as well as supplying and supporting over thirty researchers on diverse projects. In the fall of 2012, I began my graduate research studies at UCSB and joined Prof. Gui Bazan's group in CPOS.

Research

My research focuses on the morphology of organic photovoltaic materials in bulk heterojunction (BHJ) solar cells. Understanding the relationships between the chemical structure, material properties and processing conditions of small-molecule materials are critical to engineering an efficient morphology. In particular, I plan to focus on how our blend BHJs are influenced by the use of non-fullerene acceptors, and whether the desirable morphology can be recovered with the use of additives or differing processing conditions.