Denise is registered as a PhD student at Lancaster University and will carry out the majority of her research in the Physics Department, working on the epitaxial growth of gallium antimonide based quantum dot materials for the development of novel solar cells using molecular beam epitaxy (MBE). The research will involve systematic MBE growth studies of GaSb quantum dots, characterisation of the resulting materials using photoluminescence and photocurrent spectroscopy, electrical and structural measurements. Prototype intermediate band solar cells will also be fabricated and extensively tested in collaboration with other PROMIS partners.

Denise will join the Semiconductor Physics and Nanostructures Group in the Physics Department and will be supervised by Prof. Tony Krier. She will work closely with other PROMIS researchers at Tyndall-UCC, University of Cadiz, University of Rome and IQE Ltd., with a number of secondment visits to these partners.

Denise Montesdeoca Cardenes was born in the Canary Islands (Spain) in the 1991. Since she was a child she showed a great interest in science even when both of her parents are psychologists. In 2009 she started the Physics degree in Madrid (Universidad Autonoma de Madrid, UAM) looking for new experiences living by her own, first in a residence and then sharing flats with her friends. After the huge experience of immersing in the physics world she understood that photonics and nanotechnology have amusements applications. Though, she decided to go on in the research way with “Growth and characterization of GaAs: Zn by CBE system technique” in the degree dissertation (UAM) at the Applied Physics Department. Also, before finishing the degree she carried out external practices at Science Material Institute of Madrid (ICMM) studying light properties in disordered materials, the same research of her master thesis.

In the Material Advanced master (UAM) she mixed subjects of the two branches, Photonics and Nanotechnology. After studying 6 years in Madrid and working at ICMM for six months the time to go abroad arrived and now she is joining Lancaster University for the next three years. Her PhD project belongs to the European PROMIS project for materials for energy, and consists on developing and characterizing IBSC based on QD. Hopefully, she and her group will obtain promising results.

Mon 21 December 2015