The Cluster of Excellence livMatS develops completely novel, bioinspired materials systems that adapt autonomously to various environments and harvest clean energy from their surroundings. The intention of these purely technical – yet in a behavioral sense quasi-living – materials systems is to meet the demands of humans with regard to pioneering environmental and energy technologies. The societal relevance of autonomous systems and their sustainability will thus play an important role in their development. The research program of livMatS is characterized by highly interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers from a broad range of fields including engineering, chemistry, physics, biology, psychology, the humanities, and sustainability sciences.

Charge transfer at interfaces is a central topic in the livMatS project Interfaces, charge-transfer and non-adiabatic processes and their exploitation in a frequency-tunable tribogenerator. We will employ electronic structure calculations to investigate the relevant interfacial transport properties. The main topic will be the elucidation of the working principles of tribogenerators, where the calculations shall unravel the electrification of the contacting interfaces. Different hypotheses for the origins of charge separation will be explored within electronic structure calculations in the ground-state of the material as well as in excited state investigations.

Charge transfer over complex interfaces is also of high importance in the project Inorganic and Organic SolStore, where solar energy conversion and storage will be combined within the same material. Here, junctions between organic and inorganic/metallic and semi-metallic regions will determine the overall device performance. Their structural, electronic and optical properties will be investigated with density-functional theory. Tuning of molecular properties e. g. through optimized Fermi level alignment will reveal the optimal choice of the organic phases and in this way guide their synthesis. The effect of different anchor groups and substituents will be screened. Predicted optical- and electrochemical properties will be contrasted with the experimental observations of WPO1 to obtain insights into the origins of the spectral features observed.

Applicants should have a M.Sc. in physics, chemistry, materials science or related disciplines. Knowledge of a scientific programming language (e.g. Python) is required and experience with high performance computing is a plus but not mandatory. Willingness to integrate into larger software development projects and to work closely with experimentalists is mandatory.

Please hand in:

• Letter of intent detailing why you are interested in this specific project and how your previous research qualifies you for the project (up to 1,500 words)
• Curriculum Vitae with list of publications (if applicable)
• Certified copies of your university degree(s) with grades (Bachelor and Master certificate / Diploma certificate and transcript)
• Short summary of your Master’s thesis (up to 1,000 words)
• Work sample (chapter from recent thesis or journal article, up to 5,000 words)
• Suggestion of two referees with contact details

Your documents will not be returned after the application process. For this reason, please submit copies only.

E-Mail (one single pdf file):
[email protected] AND Michael [email protected]