About Us

The adverse effects that fossil fuels have on the environment are now clearly being observed, for example, with melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels, increased atmospheric temperatures, record breaking hurricanes across the world, etc. Additionally, the amount of fossil fuels in the earth is limited and this continuously depleting source means that there is an urgent need to find alternative sources of energy that are environmentally friendly, renewable and economically feasible. While a handful of such alternatives have been developed over the last few decades, none is as promising as solar energy. To that end, solar/photovoltaic cells have been developed to harness energy from the immense energy source that is the Sun. However, till date photovoltaic cell efficiencies are quite poor. To increase their efficiencies, solar cell efficiency must be improved in terms of optical (light) absorption and electrical current generation. Thus, the solar cell structures have to be altered at the nanoscale, for example, either by corrugating its surface, or by the addition of different nanostructures – nanopillars, pyramids, moth-eye, quantum dots, plasmonic nanoparticles, etc. The goal of the IUB Photonics Research Group is to utilize simulation-based techniques to analyze various plasmonic nanostructures and optimize them to improve overall solar cell efficiencies. We work extensively on simulating plasmonic solar cells using finite-difference-time-domain (FDTD) and DEVICE (CT) solvers developed by Lumerical Inc. Our current projects include analyzing plasmonic metal nanospheres placed periodically on thin-film solar cells, and establishing relationships between the various physical parameters of the nanostructures and the energy conversion of the solar cell. We are also working on novel approaches to design plasmonic solar cells to further improve their efficacy.

People

Dr. Mustafa Habib Chowdhury

Assistant Professor, Dept. of EEE, IUB



Dr. Chowdhury is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) and joined IUB in April 2015. Dr. Chowdhury received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Texas A&M University (USA) in 2005 where his doctoral research dealt with the application of Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) for biosensor development.  Dr. Chowdhury did extensive postdoctoral research at the Medical School of the University of Maryland (USA) working on the field of plasmonics and its application to biosensing from 2005-2011.  Dr. Chowdhury received his M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from California State University Long Beach (USA) and his B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from Purdue University (USA).  Dr. Chowdhury has co-authored 27 peer-reviewed journal publications, 15 of which he was the lead author. He has also co-authored numerous conference proceedings and has co-authored two book chapters. Dr. Chowdhury has served as a reviewer for a number of peer-reviewed journals and also was a guest editor for a special issue of the peer-reviewed journal Plasmonics. Additionally, Dr. Chowdhury is a co-inventor in a US patent based on developing a novel technique for super-resolution microscopy.

At IUB, Dr. Chowdhury is the founder and director of the Photonics Simulation Laboratory (PSL) where extensive research is being performed to explore ways to enhance the energy conversion efficiency in thin-film Si solar cells using plasmonic metal nanoparticles placed both on top of the Si surface, within the Si substrate, and in other configurations. The research at PSL uses high performance licensed software such as FDTD Solutions and DEVICE from Lumerical Solutions, Inc. Dr. Chowdhury currently supervises the research of one M.Sc. student and three B.Sc. students from the EEE Dept. at IUB and has supervised the authorship of five IEEE co-sponsored conference proceedings and is also currently drafting a peer-reviewed journal paper based entirely on the research done at PSL. Additionally, Dr. Chowdhury has established ongoing and active scientific collaborations between the PSL at IUB and Dr. Stephen Gray from Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, Illinois USA and Prof. Naushad Amin from the National University of Malaysia. As of July 2017, Dr. Chowdhury has 2002 citations on Google Scholar, which is the highest number of citations in the School of Engineering and Computer Science (SECS) at IUB.

Dr. Chowdhury also has extensive experience in the field of Intellectual Property (IP) law, where he worked as a Patent Technical Specialist in leading IP law firms in the greater Washington DC area from 2012-2015.Dr. Chowdhury’s work primarily involved the preparation and prosecution of provisional and non-provisional US patent applications in the areas of computer software, wireless communications, cryptography, optical sensors, optical microscopy, semiconductor devices, biosensors, biomedical devices, and nanotechnology.

Publications

    Papers

  1. S. A. Choudhury, R. A. Rifat, F. Fairooz, W. Mahdi and M. H. Chowdhury, "On the possibility of using plasmonic metal nanoparticles embedded within the silicon substrate to enhance the energy conversion efficiency of silicon thin-film solar cells," IEEE Region 10 Humanitarian Technology Conference (R10HTC), Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2017
  2. S. A. Choudhury, N. Nawshin and M. H. Chowdhury, “Influence of particle shape on the efficacy of plasmonic metal nanoparticles to enhance the energy conversion efficiency of thin film solar cells,” IEEE Region Ten Conference (TENCON), Penang, Malaysia, 2017.
  3. S. A. Choudhury, M. S. Munir, N. Nawshin and M. H. Chowdhury, “Effect of varying the row and column size of periodic arrays of plasmonic nanoparticles on the energy conversion efficiency of thin-film solar cells,” International Conference on Electrical, Computer and Communication Engineering (ECCE), pp. 44 – 49, 2017.
  4. S. A. Choudhury and M. H. Chowdhury, “Use of plasmonic metal nanoparticles to increase the light absorption efficiency of thin-film solar cells,” IEEE 4th International Conference on Sustainable Energy Technologies, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2016.
  5. S. A. Choudhury and M. H. Chowdhury, “Optimizing the Parameters of Plasmonic Metal Nanoparticles to Maximize the Energy Conversion Efficiency of Thin-Film Solar Cells,” 3rd International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Information and Communication Technology, MIST, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2016.
  6. S. A. Choudhury and M. H. Chowdhury. “The Promise and Challenges of Enhancing Solar Cell Efficiency Using Patterned Nanostructures,” 1st International Conference on Advanced Information and Communication Technology, Chittagong, Bangladesh, 2016.

    Presentations

  1. International Conference on Electrical, Computer and Communication Engineering (ICECCE) 2017, Cox's Bazar, Chittagong
  2. IUB Photonics Seminar by Dr Mustafa Habib Chowdhury
  3. IEEE 4th International Conference on Sustainable Energy Technologies, Hanoi, Vietnam, 2016
  4. 3rd International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Information and Communication Technology, MIST, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2016.
  5. 1st International Conference on Advanced Information and Communication Technology, Chittagong, Bangladesh, 2016.

Collaborations

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Videos

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Contact

Dr. Mustafa Habib Chowdhury
Assistant Professor
Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Independent University, Bangladesh

mchowdhury@iub.edu.bd

+880-2-8402251