News

The fifth NSERC CREATE TOP-SET Annual Challenge was launched during this year’s Summer School in July 2022 when four teams of four undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral fellows from the University of Ottawa, Université de Sherbrooke and McMaster University were formed. Over the course of the next few weeks, each team analyzed future prospects for new devices or systems, drawing together science, engineering, and economic analysis.  Teams reported back via a bimodal meeting on September 6 in front of their colleagues and a panel of three judges composed of Suzanne Grant, Executive Director of the Capital Angel Network, Pawel Hawrylak, professor at the Department of Physics at the University of Ottawa, and Lionel Regis, Program Manager for MakerLaunch at the University of Ottawa.

Congratulations to Meghan Beattie, Mathieu Giroux and Victoria Jancowski, respectively a postdoctoral fellow in electrical engineering, a doctoral student in mechanical engineering and an undergraduate student in electrical engineering at the University of Ottawa, and Alexander Parent, a master’s student in engineering physics at McMaster University. They are this year’s winners of the NSERC CREATE TOP-SET Annual Challenge for their work on “A Novel Photonic Power Converter for Power Over Fiber in Seafloor Observatories”.

The NSERC CREATE TOP-SET program held its summer school at the University of Ottawa from July 18 to 20, 2022. A total of 51 participants hailing from academia, government laboratories and industry took part in the three-day program on the theme of “Getting together towards net-zero solutions”. Guest speakers from Canada and the United States discussed subjects relevant to TOP-SET trainees including photovoltaic technologies, policy, entrepreneurship and strategic thinking.

Awards were given to the best student poster and oral presentations.  Ms. Paramita Bhattacharyya  won first place in the oral presentation competition for her talk on “Design and fabrication of color-generating nitride based thin-film optical filters for photovoltaic applications”.  Ms. Bhattacharyya is a PhD candidate in engineering physics under the supervision of Dr. Rafael Kleiman at McMaster University.  Mr. Nick Anderson won the best poster presentation award. He is a MASc candidate in electrical engineering under the supervision of Dr. Henry Schriemer at the University of Ottawa. He presented a poster entitled “Probabilistic assessment of narrowband vs broadband solar irradiance temporal variability in Ottawa”.  Congratulations to all!

Paramita Bhattacharyya, winner of the best oral presentation award (left), and Nick Anderson, winner of the best poster presentation (right), receive their awards from TOP-SET leader Dr. Karin Hinzer and TOP-SET collaborator Dr. Abderraouf Boucherif.

The fourth NSERC CREATE TOP-SET Annual Challenge was launched during this year’s Summer School in July 2021 when six teams of four or five undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral fellows from the University of Ottawa, Université de Sherbrooke and McMaster University were formed. Over the course of the next few weeks, each team analyzed future prospects for new devices or systems, drawing together science, engineering, and economic analysis.  Teams reported back via an online meeting on September 2 in front of their colleagues, TOP-SET researchers and a panel of three judges composed of Ahmad Atieh from Optiwave Systems Inc., Ayse Turak from the Department of Engineering Physics at McMaster University, and David Wright from the Telfer School of Management at the University of Ottawa.

Congratulations to Farah Ayari, a master’s student in electrical engineering at Université de Sherbrooke, Nick Anderson, Gavin Forcade and Mathieu Giroux, respectively a master’s student in electrical engineering, a doctoral student in physics and a doctoral student in mechanical engineering at the University of Ottawa, and Milena Thibault, an undergraduate student in electrical engineering at McMaster University. They are this year’s winners of the NSERC CREATE TOP-SET Annual Challenge, for their work on “Near-Field Thermophotovoltaics for Waste Heat Recycling”.

The NSERC CREATE TOP-SET program held its summer school program online for a second time, from July 6 to 9, 2021.  A total of 67 participants hailing from three universities took part in the program which was organized by our team at the University of Ottawa.  Guest speakers from Canada, the United States and the Netherlands provided insights on the energy transition as well as technical and professional training. Activities covered a wide range of subjects relevant to TOP-SET trainees, including the NREL System Advisor Model, writing for scientific communications, intellectual property as well as student presentations.

Awards were given to the best student poster and oral presentations.  Ms. Daisy Xia won first place in the oral presentation competition for her talk on “Modeling hot-carrier solar cells with inter-valley scattering using an intermediate-band approach”.  Ms. Xia is a PhD student in physics under the supervision of Dr. Jacob Krich at the University of Ottawa.  Ms. Erin Tonita and Ms. Paige Wilson won best poster presentation awards. Ms. Tonita is a PhD student in physics under the supervision of Dr. Karin Hinzer at the University of Ottawa. She presented a poster entitled “Wavelength-resolved encapsulated bifacial silicon heterojunction solar cell carrier loss”.  Ms. Wilson is a PhD student in engineering physics under the supervision of Dr. Ray LaPierre at McMaster University. She presented a poster entitled “Simulation of optical absorption in conical nanowires”. Congratulations to all!

Dates and location of the 2022 NSERC CREATE TOP-SET summer school will be announced in winter 2022. Watch this page for details.

Registration is now open for the NSERC CREATE TOP-SET 2021 Summer School, to be held online July 6-9. Click here for the full program and registration details.

The third NSERC CREATE TOP-SET Annual Challenge was launched during this year’s Summer School in July 2020 when five teams of three to five undergraduate and graduate students as well as postdoctoral fellows from the University of Ottawa, Université de Sherbrooke and McMaster University were formed. Over the course of the next few weeks, each team analyzed future prospects for new devices or systems, drawing together science, engineering, and economic analysis.  Teams reported back via an online meeting on September 8 in front of their colleagues, TOP-SET researchers and a panel of three judges composed of Maike Wiesenfarth from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE in Germany, Christian Dubuc from Stace Solar Solutions in St-Augustin, Québec, and Jean-Michel Ménard, from the Department of Physics at the University of Ottawa.

Congratulations to Hassan Allami and Ras-Jeevan Obhi, respectively a postdoctoral fellow in physics and an MASc student in electrical engineering at the University of Ottawa, as well as David McShannon, an MASc student in engineering physics at McMaster University. They are this year’s winners of the NSERC CREATE TOP-SET Annual Challenge, for their work on “Bifacial perovskite solar cells: A cost analysis”.

The NSERC CREATE TOP-SET program held its summer school program online from July 7 to 10, 2020.  A total of 61 participants hailing from three universities took part in the program which was organized by TOP-SET trainees and professors at Université de Sherbrooke.  Guest speakers included Ms. Jill Tymchak from J.L. Richards, Dr. Denis Machon from Université Lyon 1, as well as NSERC CREATE TOP-SET co-investigators and collaborators. Activities covered a wide range of subjects relevant to TOP-SET trainees, from a full day devoted to the PVsyst modeling tool and a Mitacs professional workshop on productive teams, to a seminar on critical thinking and even a virtual poster session.

Awards were given to the best student poster and oral presentations.  Ms. Erin Tonita won first place in the oral presentation competition for her talk on “Temperature-dependent carrier generation and recombination rates in bifacial silicon heterojunction solar cells”.  Ms. Tonita is a PhD student in physics under the supervision of Dr. Karin Hinzer at the University of Ottawa.  Ms. Ras-Jeevan Obhi, Mr. Philippe St-Pierre and Ms. Daixi Xia won best poster presentation awards. Ms. Obhi is an MASc student in electrical engineering under the supervision of Dr. Karin Hinzer at the University Ottawa. She presented a poster entitled “Performance of bifacial silicon solar cells under varied angle of incidence”. Mr. St-Pierre is an MASc student in electrical engineering under the supervision of Dr. Simon Fafard at the Université de Sherbrooke. He presented a poster entitled “Passivating antireflection coating (ARC) for concentrated photovoltaics (CPV)”. Ms. Xia is a PhD student in physics under the supervision of Dr. Jacob Krich at the University of Ottawa. She presented a poster entitled “Detailed balance modeling of multijunction monochromatic power conversion”. Congratulations to all!

Planning for the 2021 NSERC CREATE TOP-SET summer school is already under way.  Dates and location will be announced in winter 2021. Watch this page for details.

You can now register to the NSERC CREATE TOP-SET 2020 Summer School. Click here for the full program and registration details.

We are delighted to confirm that the 2020 NSERC CREATE TOP-SET Summer School will be offered entirely online this July 7 to 10. The organizing committee is working hard on programming this year’s events.  Activities will include professional and technical workshops, student presentations and the 2020 Annual Challenge kick off.  More details will be added to this page in the next few weeks.

The program will include student oral and poster presentations.  To submit an abstract, follow the instructions found in the template.  Abstracts must be submitted no later than May 31, 2020 using this form.  Results from the reviewing process will be communicated during the week of June 15.

Abstracts will be evaluated using the following criterias :

• Topic related to TOP-SET;
• Quality of research;
• Impact of the results;
• Quality of abstract presentation (writing, clear and logical presentation)

For further information, contact Christine Couture at [email protected].

Due to the current situation related to COVID-19, all upcoming seminars are postponed to 2020-2021 :

• Federica Cappelluti, Politechnico di Torino, March 26, 2020 – Postponed
• Oleg Popovsky, Braggawatt Energy, April 7, 2020 – Postponed
• Giuseppe Marco Tina, Universita degli studi di Catania, April 28, 2020 – Postponed

Watch this page for an announcement of our 2020-2021 seminars later this year.