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A team of undergraduate students from the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) has published an original research paper in the top-ranked peer reviewed international journal Applied Optics, published by Optica (formerly known as Optical Society of America). The paper is titled “Effects of ‘defective’ plasmonic metal nanoparticle arrays on the opto-electronic performance of thin-film solar cells: computational study”. It was published on April 12, 2023. The research was conducted as part of the student group’s Final Year Design Project.
The article can be accessed here: https://opg.optica.org/ao/abstract.cfm?uri=ao-62-12-3028
Applied Optics is a highly impactful peer-reviewed journal that publishes research articles covering areas such as optical technology, photonics, lasers, information processing, sensing, and environmental optics. The group members are final year undergraduate students Abrar Jawad Haque and Tawseef Ahmed Khan, and their co-authors are Asif Al Suny and Rifat Bin Sultan, both 3rd year students of EEE. They were supervised by Dr. Mustafa Habib Chowdhury, Associate Professor of EEE and Director of the IUB Photonics Simulation Laboratory (IUBPSL).
In this paper, the team performed a large set of computational studies to investigate the effects of common defects that occur while fabricating arrays of plasmonic metal nanoparticles (NPs) on the absorbing layer of solar cells to improve optical and electronic performance of plasmonic thin film solar cells. After detailed research work and simulations, the results indicate the promising potential of using relatively inexpensive techniques to fabricate “defective” plasmonic NP arrays on solar cells.
The conclusions of this study can crucially aid manufacturers to enhance the performance of solar cells leading to widespread utilization of solar energy and will be of great interest to the scientific community working with solar cells, specially in the developing world where access to high tech nanofabrication equipment and other such facilities is very limited.
This is the first time a research conducted in an undergraduate Final Year Design Project has been published in a high-ranked international peer-reviewed journal immediately after the completion of the project. This research was completely conceived, designed and executed at IUB without any external or international collaborations and was fully funded by the IUB Office of Sponsored Research (Grant Award No: 2021-SETS-08).
Additionally, the two co-authors of this article, Asif Al Suny and Rifat Bin Sultan, were completing their 3rd year of undergraduate degree coursework for the whole duration of the research study and paper drafting process. This is further proof that the EEE Department of IUB involves its students in high-quality research from a very early stage.
Applied Optics1
Independent University, Bangladesh
