For their research on atomic-scale 3D imaging and perovskite materials, respectively, two graduate students from the Cornell Duffield College of Engineering have been awarded Gold Graduate Student Awards by the Materials Research Society.
These awards recognize exceptional graduate students whose academic achievements and materials research demonstrate a high level of excellence and distinction. The awards also highlight researchers who show strong promise for significant future contributions to the field.
Shake Karepetyan conducts research with David A. Muller, the Samuel B. Eckert Professor of Engineering in the School of Applied and Engineering Physics and co-director of the Cornell Center for Materials Research. Her research focuses on developing and applying multislice electron ptychography, a computational electron microscopy technique that enables three-dimensional imaging of materials and semiconductor devices with atomic-scale resolution. Her works helps provide new insight into how buried atomic-scale structure can influence device performance and reliability and aims to develop new and more accurate methods for three-dimensional atomic-scale imaging of materials, defects, interfaces and devices.
Shripathi Ramakrishnan works with Qiuming Yu, professor in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, where he has made important contributions to perovskite solar cell technology. His work focuses on developing new material design principles to unlock new chemical spaces in 2D perovskites and incorporating them in perovskite heterostructures that combine different dimensionalities. These advances have enabled him to create perovskite solar cells that achieve power conversion efficiencies comparable to those of modern silicon solar cells. More importantly, his work has addressed one of the field’s most significant challenges: the long-term stability of perovskite solar cells under real-world operating conditions, including exposure to sunlight, heat and moisture.
Award recipients are selected from students in good standing in graduate programs who are presenting their research at the Materials Research Society meeting, making the honor highly competitive.