PhD Position in Chemistry 2011 by University of Freiburg, Germany

Scholarship Details:

1 PhD Position in Chemistry (36 months, Salary scale E13/2) is available at the Institute of Physical Chemistry I (AK-Weber), University of Freiburg, within the DFG project: Investigation of the defect centers in novel zinc oxide (ZnO) nano-particles by in-situ electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) and optical spectroscopy.

ZnO
ZnO nano-materials has unique performance properties of materials for printing technology as well as solar cell applications. Doping ZnO with transition metal elements like Fe, Co, Mn or Cr leads to materials with entirely different behavior towards magnetic and optical excitation. This new research direction is named as diluted magnetic semiconductors (DMS). DMS materials which are based on ZnO could show not only ferromagnetism at room temperature upon doping with transition metal ions, e.g. Fe, Cr, Co, and Mn but also simultaneously exhibit ferromagnetic and semiconducting properties which is important for the new spintronic devices (spin LED’s, spin valve transistors) and magneto-optic components.

The main goals of this project are to:

i) develop new methodologies for the synthesis of undoped and transition metal ion doped ZnO nano-particles,
ii) identify the nature or origin of the intrinsic defect centers by spectroscopic methods, mainly by EPR,
iii) understand the mechanism underlying the size effects for the ZnO particles,
iv) introduce transition metal ions (Mn2+, Cr3+, Co2+, Fe3+) into the ZnO material and to investigate the interaction of native and extrinsic defects and the ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic properties.

Application Details:

Applicants should have a diploma, master (MSc) or equivalent in Chemistry, with a strong background in inorganic materials. Experience in solid state synthesis will be preferred. Good command of written and spoken English is mandatory. Computer programming skills, e.g. in Matlab or Mathematica is an advantage.

Application Deadline:
Application Deadline is 14th of August 2011

Further Details:
For further information about this scholarship visit below link.

http://www.uni-freiburg.de/universitaet/organisation/stellenboerse/?stellenid=7522&layout=v4

Similar Scholarship Opportunities:

1. PhD Students in Environmental Chemistry at Helmholtz Zentrum Muenchen Department, Germany
2. PhD Position in Surface Chemistry and Metal Coordination 2011, Sweden
3. PostDoc and PhD Positions at University of Freiburg – Germany
4. Research Fellow in Computational Chemistry – Theoretical Materials Sciences, Germany
5. Ph.D Scholarship at Faculty of Chemistry and Life Sciences-KIT – Germany