PhD Scholarship in sensing and switching hidden nanomagnets (NETHERLANDS)

Description of the PhD project

In nanophysics great advances have been made in using scanning probe microscopy to image and tune surface phenomena with ultimate resolution. Very recently, it is suggested that these tools are able to ‘look below the surface’ by exploiting anisotropically propagating electrons. Inspired by these intriguing first observations, a novel imaging and manipulation method will be developed by the OIO candidate that is able to uniquely address nanometer-scale ferromagnetic entities embedded well below a metallic surface. Using spin-dependent electron waves strongly focused due to the anisotropy of the Fermi surface, it will be possible to explore spin imaging and manipulation in the true nanometer regime! 

This vacancy will be promoted at the PhD Workshop Beijing.

Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Reader in Electrical Power & Energy Engineering ( University of Bath - UK)

A Lecturer/Senior Lecturer/Reader post is available immediately in the Centre for Sustainable Power Distribution in the Department of Electronic & Electrical Engineering at The University of Bath. The department is rated in the UK top 10 in its Unit of Assessment in the Research Assessment Exercise 2008 and number 4 in the UK National Student Survey 2009.

The research focus of the post can be in any area of electrical power and energy engineering. The successful candidate will play a key role in developing interdisciplinary power and energy research within the Faculty of Engineering and Design and the wider university. The appointee will contribute to the department’s growing collaborations with Chinese universities in research and teaching.

Opportunities for research funding are excellent and the area has been identified as a priority by government, industry, the UK research councils and the EU. Teaching will include both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.

Applicants for Senior Lecturer/Reader, should have a strong track record of publications at an international level and a proven ability to attract research funding.

Lecturer in Power Electronics (University of Aberdeen - UK)

Job Summary: The School of Engineering at the University of Aberdeen is seeking to appoint a Lecturer who will contribute to research and teaching in the Power Electronics area. The appointee will be a dynamic individual with clear ability for leading highest-quality research in his/her field. He/she will have excellent communication skills and the desire and ability to excel in teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

The successful applicant will strengthen an established power systems group with internationally recognised excellence in power electronics applications to transmission/distribution systems. There is an opportunity to contribute to the existing research on DC Transmission grids and to develop new research areas.

The new Lecturer will join a research-intensive General Engineering unit, which had 83% of its research output ranked as world leading or internationally excellent in the 2008 UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE 2008).

Salary will be at the appropriate point on the Grade 7 scale (£36,862 - £44,016 per annum), with placement according to qualifications and experience.

Full Professor Position in Innovative Structural Design (NETHERLANDS)

Tasks/job description:

The Professor in Innovative Structural Design heads the Chair of Innovative Structural Design, part of the Structural Design unit. This Chair aims to conduct research on the topology of structures and the development and research of new structure types. Furthermore, the Chair of Innovative Structural Design is expected to make scientific contributions to the sustainability of the built environment, its buildings and their structures and construction possibilities. From this point of view, the so-called “Integrated Lifecycle Design" of building structures, the technical and functional service life of the building structure, requirements for building deconstruction, demountable buildings and structures for flexible buildings will be researched. The Chair should also carry out research on generative design. Implementation of structural design aspects in generative design modeling is essential to guarantee useful structural solutions and to achieve structural optimization in the future. 

Cooperation, innovation and a multi-disciplinary approach are key words in the research program of the Structural Design unit within which the different research groups collaborate closely on achieving innovative research. They are

Scholarships for Postgraduate Studies in Energy and Environment in the UK and U.S.

IBERDROLA Foundation presents the First Round of Grants for Graduate Studies in Energy and Environment in the UK and U.S.. The training areas covered are:

• Renewable energy
• Emissions management and carbon sequestration
• Energy efficiency
• Environment and biodiversity
• Sustainable energy system

This invitation is estimated that up to 14 awards for the period 2011-2012, for postgraduate studies at the following universities or technology centers in British and American:

• University of Edinburgh (UK)
• Imperial College of London (United Kingdom)
• University of Strathclyde (UK)
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT (USA)
• Rochester Institute of Technology - RIT (USA)
• University of Maine (United States)

PhD Scholarship in laser material interactions in thin liquid layers (NETHERLANDS)

Project description

Background. Femtosecond lasers are characterized by ultrashort duration pulses (typically 10^-13 s), which when focused, lead to extremely high instant power density. These extreme conditions induce nonlinear absorption phenomena like multi-photon absorption processes that can be a precursor for plasma formation in transparent media. In liquid films, under certain energy and focusing conditions, femtosecond laser pulses can lead to liquid transfer processes involving jet formation. The laser induced jet formation has potential to be applied for the printing of material from a liquid layer. This may open opportunities to direct print materials which cannot be printed with established ink-jet printing techniques.

Project objective. In this project we will first establish suitable experimental techniques to study the laser material interactions in thin liquid layers resolved in time. The results of a pre-study can be found in D. Tiwari et al, Applied Physics Express 3 (2010) 127101 The project aims for deeply investigating and understanding the phenomena of bubble formation and jet formation to be able to judge and propose potential applications in the field of printing of materials

3 PhD-Positions on Graphene: a new transistor device and a sensitive gas sensor

There are 3 Phd positions available:

1. One of the Phd-positions is focussed on a revolutionary design and realization of large array of “gated transistor” devices using much simpler lithographic methods compared to the state-of-the-art Si technology.

2. The second Phd position is related to investigate the existence of ferromagnetism on H-covered graphene: a fundamental experimental study making use of spin-polarized Scanning Tunneling Spectroscopy(STS) and photoemission spectroscopy.

3. The third Phd position is related to developing a highly sensitive gas sensor from grapheme, based on the extraordinary properties of graphene, e.g. the planar structure, the high conductivity, the low noise characteristic in graphene and the excellent low ohmic contacting option. The goal is to study and improve the sensitivity and the selectivity of clean (exfoliated and epitaxial graphene) and functionalized graphene for gas sensing and quantify the role of structural defects on the sensitivity. This will be studied in combination Raman spectroscopy with single molecule sensitivity in combination with Scanning Tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/STS).

In the group M2N we are presently investigating graphene, in particular the role of structural defects on the mobility and the interaction of electrons with phonons and plasmons. Besides graphene, there is strong activity in understanding the inelastic electron tunnelling mechanism for adsorbed molecules on surfaces, experimentally as well as theoretically. A large part of the group is involved in the design and improvement of the functionality of organic solar-cells and organic electronics.

The project involves a detailed investigation of the electronic structure of graphene grown on SiC substrates. In particular, the graphene/SiC interface

Associate Professor Position in Biomedical Image Analysis (NETHERLANDS)

Job description

The Department of Biomedical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology seeks an Senior Researcher (associate level, fulltime, tenure track) in the field of Biomedical Image Analysis.

Medical imaging has developed revolutionary, and has become the prime source of information for diagnosis and interventions. The need for sophisticated analysis and visualization algorithms is strongly increasing, not only due to the sheer complexity of the data, now encompassing many modalities and being more and more multi-valued (vector and tensor data, multi-scale, multi-orientation etc.), but also due to the advent of acquisition and visualization of many functional parameters (e.g. strain, diffusivity etc.), the need for image guided surgery and interventions, and the sheer volume of the data.

The Biomedical Image Analysis group, headed by prof. Bart M. ter Haar Romeny, and established in 2001, has developed a solid position in research and teaching in this field, and operates at world-class level. See:http://bmia.bmt.tue.nl. The scientific research in the group BMIA focuses on three closely intertwined areas: