Job description
Are you interested in the electronic transport of 2D materials? Do you enjoy hands-on work including building setups, fabricating devices and performing electrical measurements? As a PhD student of Advanced Nanomaterials & Devices group, you will have the opportunity to build state-of-the-art fabrication and measurement setups that enable controlled tuning of twist angle in-situ, which has emerged as an exciting new avenue of research in the recent years.
What is it about?
Controlling the stacking orientation of 2D materials through twisting and sliding allows precise engineering of their electronic properties. For instance, when two sheets of 2D materials are twisted to their “magic angle”, an entirely new “flat band” is formed, where correlation-driven phenomena, including superconductivity and magnetism unexpectedly emerge, making twistronics an exciting frontier in condensed matter physics. However, despite their promising properties, twistronics devices are structurally unstable, and issues such as uncontrollable strain and twist-angle inhomogeneity hinder reproducibility and device yield. To tackle these challenges, we aim to develop experimental tools that turn strain and twist-angle into tuning parameters, allowing us to explore their roles in the emergence of correlation.
The team
You will work in the “2D Transport Lab” led by the newly appointed Assistant Professor, Dr. Martin Lee of the Advanced Nanomaterials and Devices (AND) group. The AND group is a part of the Eindhoven Hendrik Casimir Institute (EHCI) which hosts a wealth of world leading researchers of photonics, electronics and quantum technology. You will perform experimental research in collaboration with international experimental and theoretical researchers. You will also be involved in education, mentorship and supervision of BSc and MSc students.
What will you learn?
Throughout your PhD, you'll acquire a range of technical skills including the famous “Scotch Tape” exfoliation method, van der Waals assembly, in-situ twistronics, nanofabrication, magnetotransport, strain engineering, development of cryogenic instruments, scanning probe microscopy, finite element modelling, data analysis, hardware programming and others. You will benefit[MT1] from and make full use of the world-class scientific infrastructure such as the NanoLabTUe cleanroom, Institute for Complex Molcular Systems (ICMS) and Equipment & Prototype Center (EPC). Moreover, you will also develop personal skills on how to establish collaborations, perform frontier research, write in a scientific style, publish in reputable top journals and present to an international group of scientists.