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”.