Hi - I am Joshua Pearce Please feel free to drop me a line
You can learn much more about me here
Current Projects, Collaborations and Mayhem
Clarion University of Pennsylvania Assistant Professor of Physics
Coordinator of Sustainability: Science and Policy Program
The Sustainability program is meant to introduce undergraduate students to the concept of sustainability and provide them with both the scientific foundation and policy tools necessary to effect real-world positive change. This program is closely related to the work of the Pennsylvania Consortium For Interdisciplinary Environmental Policy I developed a course to anchor the program called PH261: Physics of Energy and the Environment. It will be offered for the first time online in Fall 2007 and I hope to incorporate Sustainapedia directly into the curriculum.
Coordinator of Nanotechnology
Nanotechnology is one of the most powerful scientific tools we have developed. Information about the Clarion nanotech program can be found here We are currently running a digital art contest for high school students on Nanotechnology and the Environment.
Solar Photovoltaic Research and Application
Photovoltaic electrical production is a technologically feasible, economically viable, environmentally benign, sustainable, and socially equitable solution to society’s future energy requirements. If anyone is still concerned about the energy payback of solar cells please read this.
Amorphous and Nanocrystalline Silicon Solar Cells
Hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) based solar cells are the least expensive at a given production level and posses an excellent ecological balance sheet. The ecological and economic promise of a-Si:H solar cells is currently incomplete because of the light induced degradation of its electronic properties known as the Staebler-Wronski Effect (SWE). Numerous theories have been proposed to explain SWE, and my work has focused on the analysis of experimental evidence for a complex SWE mechanism - with an eye on controlling and eliminating the problem. Recent publications on the technical aspects of a-Si:H solar cells.
Agrima Device Solutions
I co-founded Agrima Device Solutions LLC. It is a partnership between specialists in nanowires, nanotubes and a photovoltaic physics devices. We are in the process of developing a disruptive alternative to currently available solar photovoltaic devices that rely on large amounts of expensive, rigid, and often toxic materials. In the first phase of our collaboration our goal is to design, develop, and fabricate high efficiency nanostructure-based solar cells from silicon nanowires.
Solar Cell Demonstration and Education
It is not enough just to do research - we have to start implementing sustainable solutions to the world's problems. At Clarion we have two demonstrations - this one for a small residential tracking system -- and a huge BIPV system for our new green LEED Science and Technology Center currently under construction. I have also started collaborating with Edheads to create a solar photovoltaic learning module.