2 Postdoctoral positions are opening at the UCLouvain (Louvain-la-neuve, Belgium) and ULiège (Liège, Belgium), in the project Ab initio study of large polarons (ALPS), funded by FNRS.

 

The project focuses on the modifications of electronic structure and transport properties of materials due to the electron-phonon interaction. This interaction directly drives electrical conductivity and superconductivity, but also governs temperature dependence and zero-point motion renormalization, long forgotten in electronic structure calculations. In recent years, theoretical progress and breakthrough implementations have allowed one to tackle, from first-principles, unsolved problems in this area, and to connect such first-principles approach with the large polaron concept (e.g. the Frohlich model) [1]. 

 

High-accuracy as well as high-throughput approaches [2] are still to be developed, and will be at the center of the postdoctoral work, involving implementation in the ABINIT package (http://www.abinit.org), followed by application to different classes of materials, e.g. topological insulators. The retained candidates will join a large national and international collaboration: the positions are funded for joint work between the UCLouvain and Université de Liège, Belgium, with collaborators at the CEA, Bruyères-le-Châtel, France and Université de Montréal, Canada. Contribution to the Materials Project (https://materialsproject.org/) is expected.

 

The candidates should have a PhD in Materials Science/Engineering, Physics or Chemistry, be familiar with density functional theory, have excellent coding skills (e.g. Fortran and Python), demonstrated by significant development of some software applications. The candidates should also be in a "situation of international mobility" (not to have resided in Belgium more than 24 months in the last 3 years), and not have passed the PhD by more than 6 years at the beginning of their contract.

 

The positions are one-year contracts which can be renewed up to a total of three years, upon mutual agreement. Salaries follow the legal scale for postdoctoral contracts in Belgium (indicatively around 2000 Euros after taxes). 

 

Applicants should send their CV (pdf) including their publication list and description of their coding skills, as well as a brief motivation letter, to [email protected] and [email protected]

before end of April 2019. They should also arrange for two letters of recommendation to be sent to the same address. One position can start immediately, the other is more flexible (until end of 2019).

 

[1]  Antonius G., Poncé S., Boulanger P., Côté M. and X. Gonze, Phys. Rev. Lett. 112 215501 (2014);   Poncé S., Gillet Y., Laflamme Janssen J., Marini A., Verstraete M. and Gonze, X. J. Chem. Phys. 143, 102813 (2015); Nery, J.P., Allen P.B., Antonius G., Reining L., Miglio A. and X. Gonze. Phys. Rev. B 97, 115145 (2018).

[2]  Petretto G. et al. Scientific Data 5 180065 (2018).