Asmita enjoys biking, swimming and dancing as well as reading novels, but her passion is science. "Science makes a difference, and I want to make a difference," says Asmita.
Her mentors include her father, who taught Asmita science and its principles, and her eighth-grade science teacher, who challenged her in his class.
Asmita's project was triggered by her interest in alternative fuels. While researching types of alternative fuels, Asmita learned about photovoltaic devices, which are inexpensive methods of capturing light energy. She developed an experiment to determine whether dye-based cells would perform better than commercially available silicon solar cells. Asmita hypothesized that dye-based cells would produce a large photovoltaic effect when illuminated in any color of light other than the color of the dye and that silicon solar cells would show a peak photovoltaic effect in one particular light.
Asmita extracted three types of organic dyes from plants: citrus leaf, raspberry and blackberry. She assembled photovoltaic cells, creating four cells of each dye type. She tested each cell in different light—sunlight, white halogen, blue, red and green. Asmita also measured four silicon cells and measured the voltage and current produced by each cell. Asmita concluded that dye-based cells performed better in a broader spectrum of light and that silicon cells performed well in all colored lights. This finding indicates that silicon cells are considerably more efficient than homemade dye-based photovoltaic cells.
