IUB wins Best Paper Award at IEEE Quantum Conference

The Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) at Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) has been awarded the Best Paper prize at an international conference for its research on sustainable solar energy.

The award was given in the Poster Paper Presentation category at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Quantum Photonics, Artificial Intelligence, and Networking (QPAIN), which was held from July 31 to August 2 at the Bangladesh Army University of Science and Technology (BAUST) in Saidpur.

The winning paper, titled "Effect of Plasmonic Metal Core – Tin(II) Fluoride Shell Nanoparticle Shape in Lead-Free Perovskite Solar Cells: A DFT and FDTD Study," was authored by a team of students and faculty. The team included undergraduate students Hemal Sharma, Fardous Mahmud, and Anika Bushra, along with Research Scientist Tazrian Noor, and Dr. Mustafa Habib Chowdhury, the Head of the EEE Department and Director of the IUB Photonics Simulation Laboratory (IUBPSL).

Hemal Sharma and Fardous Mahmud presented the paper at the conference. Their research addressed the challenge of replacing lead, a toxic material, in perovskite solar cells with a safer, tin-based alternative, while maintaining performance. The research proposed a novel method using plasmonic metal nanoparticles coated in tin(II) fluoride to enhance device efficiency.

The paper was selected from over 165 submissions in the poster session, with the evaluation process involving multiple pre-conference reviews and live judging by session chairs. IUB was the sole winner in its category, while the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) won the Oral Presentation category.

The QPAIN 2025 conference was organised by the IEEE Photonics Society Bangladesh Chapter and featured representation from 28 countries, including Australia, Canada, and the United States. Dr. Chowdhury also served as a Technical Program Committee Co-Chair and a Session Chair at the event. The paper is scheduled to be indexed in SCOPUS and published in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library.