DIFFER (Dutch Institute for Fundamental Energy Research) is one of the NWO institutes and focuses on a multidisciplinary approach of the energy research combining physics, chemistry, engineering and materials science. The institute is based on two main strands, solar fuels for the conversion and storage of renewable energy and fusion-energy as clean and unlimited source of energy. DIFFER is developing and supporting a national network on fundamental energy research and is closely collaborating with academic institutions, research institutes and industry.

Scientific aim:

The PhD project is in the general field of computational materials design for energy applications. The project will be carried out under the supervision of Dr. Süleyman Er, and will involve intensive collaborations with researchers from the Netherlands and the US. 

Responsibilities and tasks:

The main focus of the project is to use suitable computational tools (e.g. quantum chemistry calculations and machine learning) for the prediction of new energy materials. The candidates will:

• acquire a broad knowledge of solar energy conversion and energy storage materials,
• learn state-of-the-art computational methods,
• develop new theoretical methods in a form suitable for numerical implementation, and
• apply those methods in the relevant problem areas

The PhD project will be carried out at DIFFER, Eindhoven, the Netherlands, and involves frequent contacts with our (inter)national collaborators.

Qualifications:

We are looking for computationally skilled, hardworking, and focused colleagues with a background in Computational (Physics/Chemistry/Materials Science), Computer Science, Data Science or equivalent. The applicant should have a Master degree (or an equivalent diploma giving access to doctoral studies) in physical sciences or engineering. Candidates with strong programing skills and experience with electronic structure calculations, high-performance computing, machine-learning methods or big data analytics will be preferred. Good verbal and written communication skills in English are mandatory.

Employment conditions:

When fulfilling a PhD position at DIFFER, you will get the status of junior scientist. You will have an employee status and can participate in all the employee benefits DIFFER offers. You will get a contract for four years. Your salary will be up to a maximum of 2,834 euro gross per month. The salary is supplemented with a holiday allowance of 8 percent and an end-of-year bonus of 8.33 percent. You are supposed to have a thesis finished at the end of your four year term. A training programme is part of the agreement. You and your supervisor will make up a plan for the additional education and supervising that you specifically need. This plan also defines which teaching activities you will be responsible (up to a maximum of ten percent of your time). The conditions of employment of DIFFER are laid down in the Collective Labour Agreement for Research Centres (Cao-Onderzoekinstellingen), more information is available at the website http://www.fom.nl under Personeelsinformatie (in Dutch) or under Personnel (in English).

Further information:

Further information on the vacancy is available through to Dr. Süleyman Er, tel: +31 (0) 40 3334 936, email: [email protected] , website: http://www.suleymaner.com .

Application procedure:

In case you are interested you can apply by submitting an application letter, a grade list and full resume. Please refer to vacancy 16.017. The letter of application and other documents may be sent electronically as single PDF-files, to [email protected] or DIFFER, P&O department, PO Box 6336, 5600 HH Eindhoven.