A call for a two years postdoctoral position in the group of Prof. Meloni at the university of Ferrara will open soon. This position is supported by the Next Generation EU research funding.

The Laboratory of Material Modelling and Simulations group focuses on materials for energy applications, e.g., 3rd generation photovoltaics (www.cell.com/joule/pdfExtended/S2542-4351(22)00303-8) and porous materials for energy recovery (pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.nanolett.0c04941 ,  pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c02140 and https://www.electro-intrusion.eu/en). 

More recently we got interested in solar fuels and the position will be about the theoretical modeling of processes occurring in a device coupling a dichroic solar concentrator to a tandem photoelectrochemical cell based on wide and intermediate band gap semiconductors, which will operate as blue-absorbing photoanodes. The lower energy portion of the solar spectrum, which is not exploited by the n-type photoanode, will power a silicon photovoltaic cell. Thus both the light absorbing materials will operate within their optimal spectral windows for  their best solar-to-fuel conversion  efficiencies.   Among n-type materials, visible absorbing metal oxides, like hematite, WO3, BiVO4 and their junctions, further decorated with catalysts aimed at improving the charge separation properties of these semiconductor/electrolyte junction will be used. In particular, we intend to explore the effect of thin layers of mixed amorphous metal oxides and oxy-hydroxides (Co/Fe and Ni/Fe) and macromolecular oligomers (Co-Fe Prussian blue) endowed with charge transfer properties.  

Research will be performed combining ab initio modeling and rare event techniques, methods to study processes occurring on a timescale exceeding classical and ab initio molecular dynamics. QM/MM simulations using our MiMiC software (pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jctc.9b00093 and https://mimic-project.org/en/latest/index.html) are also envisaged.  

Requirements

• Ph.D. in chemistry, chemistry, materials science, or related fields.
• Experience in classical and/or ab initio simulations.
• Strong motivation to work in team, in collaboration with experimental partners.
• Excellent communication skills.

We offer

• Scientific excellence.
• Working in a broad national and international scientific networks.
• Access to local, national and European computer resources.

For additional information write an email to [email protected]