Nikita Dutta joined the Analytical Microscopy Group at NREL as a director’s postdoctoral fellow in 2021. Her research focuses on applying cryo- and in situ transmission electron microscopy to study structural evolution and degradation in battery and photovoltaic materials during device operation. Prior to joining NREL, she completed her doctorate with Professor Craig Arnold at Princeton University, where she used cryo-electron microscopy in conjunction with other characterization techniques to study structural evolution and structure-property relationships in solution-processed optoelectronic materials. At NREL, she aims to continue investigating such relationships in energy materials and to link them to device performance by advancing novel microscopy methods to characterize dynamic material structures at high-spatial and temporal resolution.

Research Interests

Novel electron microscopy techniques to characterize material structural evolution in situ

Structure-property relationships in energy materials

Education

Ph.D., Materials Science and Mechanical Engineering, Princeton University

B.S., Physics, Yale University

Associations and Memberships

Member, Materials Research Society

Member, American Ceramic Society

Featured Work

Scalable Solution Processing of Amorphous and Crystalline Chalcogenide Films, Trends in Chemistry (2021)

Crystalline Nature of Colloids in Methylammonium Lead Halide Perovskite Precursor Inks Revealed by Cryo-Electron Microscopy, Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters (2020)

Effects of Disorder on Two-Photon Absorption in Amorphous Semiconductors, Optics Letters (2020)

Awards and Honors

Materials Research Society Arthur Nowick Graduate Student Award (2021)

Materials Research Society Silver Graduate Student Award (2021)

Princeton University Charlotte Elizabeth Procter Fellowship (2020)

Princeton University Gordon Y.S. Wu Fellowship (2016)