Submitted!

I officially gave birth to my 200+ page baby yesterday! Because not all of you will have access to the UNSW library, I thought I'd post the acknowledgements here. Thanks for all your support over the past 6 years!

First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Stuart Wenham, for all the help and support he has provided me with during my time here at UNSW, and for always approaching my work with insight and optimism. With my background in mechanical engineering, he took a chance on me, and through his support he helped me realize my goal of obtaining a PhD while working towards making this world a bit greener. Thanks also to Suntech Power Co. for financial assistance in the form of a scholarship during the early years of my PhD.

I would also like to thank my co-supervisors, Dr. Anita Ho-Baillie and Dr. Alison Lennon. You are both truly great researchers, and helped me to become better at research myself. You always asked the hard questions, gave me ideas for where to find solutions, and inspired me to work harder.

To Budi Tjahjono, Roland Utama, Kate Fisher, and Anahita Karpour, for training me on all the laboratory processes. To Nino Borojevic and Nicole Kuepper, my fellow inkjet buddies, and Stanley Wang, Phill Hamer, Bernhard Vogl, Shahla Javid, and all the others in G12C. To Kian Fong Chin, Nick Shaw, Bernhard Vogl, Tom Puzzer, and Mark Griffin for your help in tackling all the equipment maintenance issues and holding our labs together. To Bernhard in particular for all his help with the Beast that is Varian 2.

To all my students, particularly John Durrant, Kalai Valliappan, James Howard, Doris Lu, Fabian Jentschke, Andrew Sung and Alex Han, THANK YOU for all your help in the labs! The many hours processing, peering through microscopes, measuring test structures, and commissioning lab equipment - truly, I could not have done all this work without you. Thanks also to Yu Yao, Jason Cui, Doris Lu, Stanley Xu, Alex Han and John Durrant for all your help with processing my final cells, particularly while I was working in California.

A big thank-you to Danny Chen and Dr. Alistair Sproul for knowing all the enrollment loopholes and helping me to jump through them. Thank you to Julie Kwan and Jill Lewis for all the administrative assistance needed to get things done in the Centre, and Richard for his help down in the EE machine shop.

Thank you to Dr. Richard Corkish, for giving me the opportunity to be a Lecturer, and all the other SPREE teaching staff for your wisdom and help over my year as an Academic. It was an incredibly challenging and rewarding experience. I felt like I gave a PhD defense every week, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

To my colleagues at REC Technology US Inc., and in particular Dr. Paul Basore, Kirsten Cabanas-Holmen, and Dr. Scott McHugo. Thank you for your patience and understanding, and all the time off work, while I was employed at REC and continuing to write up my PhD.

To all my amazing editors - Oliver Kunz, Kate Fisher, Yael Augarten, Anna Cain, Mary Cavanaugh, Mai Le and Hanne-Marthe. You saw this PhD when it was incredibly rough and embarrassing. Thanks for all the constructive criticism, and for never being judgemental.

To the City2Surfers, triathletes, paintballers, karaoke-ers, travel buddies, lunch buddies, SCUBA divers, SunSwift members - thanks for making UNSW so much fun!

To the ladies of the UNSW soccer team - for keeping me fit and sane over the past six years, and for giving me the chance to play the best soccer of my life. Thank you for my unforgettable UniGames and Superleague experiences, getting me hooked on Vegemite, and for your friendship.

A big thank you to my sister Susan for being the reason I came to Australia in the first place. Best idea ever.

Thank you to my Australian family - Yael, Craig, Andy and Sarah. For all the good times at Mooramie house. For your enthusiastic response to any and all crazy ideas - everything from keeping chickens in the backyard to all-night Lord of the Rings marathons, indulging my board game needs, puzzles and pianos and knitting and Pride and Prejudice, days at the beach and in the mountains, for being there for me when I was down about my PhD. And for always giving me somewhere to come home to on my visits back to Australia.

And last but not least, to all my family and friends back in Canada. Your patience and support has meant everything to me.