Context

A two years postdoc position is open in the Modelling of Condensed Matter and Interfaces group of the Institut Light and Matter at University Lyon 1. The postdoc offer is part of the national ANR project NearHeat gathering theoreticians experts in nanoscale thermal transport and nanoscale radiative heat transfer. This project tackles innovative near-field thermal management technologies for the optimization of the conception of nano-devices for energy conversion applications. At the limits of heat management, the performance of energy conversion devices are limited by near field heat flux. Very recent experimental studies have pointed at the giant contribution of phonons in the heat transport across a nanoscale vacuum gap separating two solids [1]. A theoretical understanding of the non-equilibrium near field energy channels is essential to imagine new and efficient thermal management devices.

Project
We plan to address phonon mediated thermal transport in the near contact regime using state-of-the-art atomistic calculations including molecular dynamics and ab-initio calculations [2-4].
The successful candidate will investigate phonon tunneling at solid interfaces separated by distances smaller than a few nanometers. Molecular dynamics (MD) and ab-initio (NEGF) calculations will be employed to probe phonon mediated thermal transfer across a vaccum gap between different types of materials of interest for energy conversion devices [2-5]. Simple analytical models may be considered to interpret the simulation results.

Candidate
The successfull candidate should hold a PhD in Physics, Physical Chemistry or Material Science. He/she should have an experience in atomistic simulations (molecular dynamics and/or ab-initio calculations) and good knowledge of solid state physics and of basic programming (fortran or C or python). Good communication skills and english writing are requested. The postdoc will work at the Institute Lumière Matière (ILM) in Lyon, under the supervision of S. Merabia (CNRS), C. Adessi (UCBL prof.) and M. Cobian (ECL prof.). She/he will also interact with our colleagues in Orsay and may benefit from interactions with experimentalists in Germany and in the USA.

Workplace
The Modelling of Condensed Matter and Interfaces group of the Institut Lumière Matière has a strong expertise in the modeling of materials at nano and microscales. Around 10 PhD students and postdocs are part of the team and English is the main scientific langage. The team is also part of the Institute Light and Matter which groups together over 300 students, research, teaching and support staff. The Institute is located on the LyonTech-la Doua campus at the heart of the Greater Lyon Metropole. Lyon is a lively city with thousands of students. Lyon is internationally renowned for its gastronomy and its centre has been named a world Heritage Site by UNESCO.

References

[1] K. Kloppstech et al., “Giant heat transfer in the crossover regime between conduction and radiation”, Nat. Comm. 8 (2017) 14475 (2017).
[2] S. Merabia and K. Termentzidis, « Thermal boundary conductance at the interface between crystals using equilibrium and non-equilibrium molecular dynamics », Phys. Rev. B 86 (2012) 094303
[3] A. Alkurdi, C. Adessi, F. Tabatabaei, S. LI, K. Termentzidis and S. Merabia, « Thermal transport across nanometre gaps :phonon transmission vs air conduction », Int. Jour. Heat Mass Transf. 158 (2020) 1199
[4] C . Adessi, S. Pecorario, S. Thébaud and G. Bouzerar, « First principle investigation of the influence of sulfur vacancies on thermoelectric properties of single layer MoS2 », Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys. 22 (2020) 15048

Contact: Samy Merabia (samy.merabia[at]univ-lyon1.fr) and Christophe Adessi (christophe.adessi[at]univ-lyon1.fr). Informal enquiries are welcome.