Responsibilities and tasks
This PhD scholarship is part of the Inorganic Phosphosulfides for Optoelectronics (IDOL) project funded by the European Research Council. The overarching goal of the project is to address a crucial scientific and technological challenge: How can we find the absolute best material for a desired application out of the enormous space of all possible materials, including the ones we haven’t yet discovered (trillions at least)?
Answering this question would advance all areas of technology, including renewable energy, electronics, transport, etc. It would also help us find alternatives to the metals that are rapidly depleting (e.g. In), slowly mined (e.g. Li), or irresponsibly sourced (e.g. Co).
We will approach this question by working on a smaller-scale case study where we limit ourselves to one intriguing class of materials (phosphosulfides) and one important application (solar cells). Our team’s task then becomes: among all possible phosphosulfides, which one will convert light most efficiently into electricity?
You will be responsible for experimental work as part of a diverse team of materials scientists, chemists, and physicists working on either experiment of computation. You will be supervised by Assist. Prof. Andrea Crovetto and Senior Researcher Eugen Stamate.
Your background could be Materials Science, Physics (emphasis on solid state physics is a plus), Chemistry (emphasis on inorganic/solid state chemistry is a plus), or related Engineering disciplines. Some previous experience with thin-film deposition and characterization is an advantage, but not a requirement. Most importantly, you should be motivated to learn new things, push the boundaries of science, and be able to work both individually and as part of a team.
Your tasks:
- Synthesize various phosphosulfide materials in thin film form, using a world-unique suite of deposition tools designed for high-throughput growth of phosphosulfides. The available techniques include reactive sputtering, evaporation, chemical vapor deposition, and reactive annealing. You will start by synthesizing Cu3PS4, a promising compound according to our preliminary work.
- Measure the chemical, physical, and optoelectronic properties of phosphosulfides using state-of-the-art characterization tools at DTU Nanolab. Available techniques include x-ray diffraction, x-ray photoemission spectroscopy, electron microscopy, spectroscopic ellipsometry, photoluminescence spectroscopy and many others.
- Exchange and analyze your data with other team members who are tackling the problem from other perspectives (e.g., by simulation, data mining, artificial intelligence).
- Develop a two-way collaboration with a computational PhD student, who will predict potential new phosphosulfide compounds for you to synthesize, and who will rely on your data for making these predictions.
- Fabricate simple solar cell prototypes using the most promising phosphosulfides you discover, and measure their efficiency and other performance indicators.
- Acquire leadership experience by supervising BSc and MSc students in smaller projects related to your PhD work.
Further information
Further information may be obtained from Assistant Professor Andrea Crovetto, email: ancro@dtu.dk, phone +4581915317
You can read more about DTU Nanolab at www.nanolab.dtu.dk