PhD position in Surface Science

We are looking for highly motivated candidates, physicists or chemists, with a background in solid state physics, surface science or physical chemistry to take up an experimental PhD position in the area of functional molecular carbon-based nanomaterials.

In this challenging PhD project, several strategies will be explored to bring organic nanostructures onto non-metallic surfaces under ultra-high vacuum (UHV) conditions.The study of their structural and electronic properties will be tackled with surface sensitive characterization tools such as scanning probe microscopy/spectroscopy and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).Tailored molecular nanoarchitechtures can be grown with atomic precision on metallic surfaces by means of on-surface synthesis. Nevertheless, the use of such materials as functional units in technological applications as spintronics or optoelectroncis often requires non-metallic substrates as their support. In this PhD project, both the direct synthesis on non-metallic substrates as well as transfer by atomic layer injection will be explored. Special attention will be payed to the study of the yet unexplored properties of heterostructures formed by carbon-based nanostructures supported by transition metals dichalcogenides, as well as to photopolymerisation reactions on oxides.

The successful candidate will be integrated in a multidisciplinary national collaborative project and in the international working environment of the NanoPhysics Laboratory.

The planned duration of the position is 4 years.

Please contact us beforehand for application details.