Research Assistant (f/m/d) 75 % part time Hydrogen Micromechanics

Area of research:

PHD Thesis

The position is suitable for part-time employment.

28.11.2022

The Institute for Applied Materials – Mechanics of Materials and Interfaces (IAM-MMI) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) strives for a fundamental understanding, prediction, and optimization of mechanisms responsible for the degradation of advanced structural and functional material systems. Our materials research portfolio comprises, among others, materials required for the energy transition, i.e. for energy conversion and storage, as well as advanced structural materials.

You will be part of a newly formed research group comprised of six researchers, undertaking fundamental research by investigating the mechanisms responsible for hydrogen embrittlement based on in situ small scale mechanical testing. As a successful candidate, you will be tasked with establishing a new detector system to measure the local distribution of the hydrogen isotope Tritium. You and your group will use this detector while performing in situ small scale mechanical testing on focused ion beam (FIB) milled samples in order to correlate the fundamental mechanisms of hydrogen embrittlement with the local hydrogen content.

Your tasks comprise:

• Adopt a Multi-Channel-Plate (MCP) detector system for measuring the local Tritium content.
• Develop software tools to analyze the obtained data.
• Validate the spatial and chemical resolution of the MCP setup.
• Integrate the MCP-System in a state-of-the-art SEM for in situ micromechanical testing.

This research center is part of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers. With more than 42,000 employees and an annual budget of over € 5 billion, the Helmholtz Association is Germany’s largest scientific organisation.