Ward Melville Students Named ExploraVision Regional Finalists

THREE VILLAGE, NY - From Three Village Central School District: Three Village Central School District’s Ward Melville High School juniors Kian Abbott, Jeffrey Casey, Darren Tung and Abhinav Yadav were selected as one of six regional finalists in the ExploraVision competition for their project, “Polychiral Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotube Solar Cells.” These students were honored for their successes during a recent in-school presentation, where they learned they will go on to compete for a chance to win a trip to Washington, D.C. and a $10,000 U.S. savings bond.

The students’ project creates efficient solar cells made from multi-walled carbon nanotubes with varying chiralities. Carbon nanotubes exhibit the photoelectric effect, so they can be used to create a solar cell. When CNTs are produced they have differing structures, which is referred to as chirality. The different chiralities absorb different wavelengths of light. The MWCNTs used would have chiralities specifically tuned to absorb the different wavelengths of sunlight resulting in a highly efficient solar cell.

As regional winners, each student was presented with a commemorative plaque and large external hard drive.

Photo courtesy of the Three Village Central School District