PhD position (Plant-derived metamaterials for ultrasonic energy harvesting)

17 Apr 2024
Job Information

Organisation/Company

Institut Lumière Matière - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1

Research Field

Engineering

Researcher Profile

First Stage Researcher (R1)

Country

France

Application Deadline

1 Aug 2024 - 23:00 (UTC)

Type of Contract

To be defined

Job Status

Full-time

Hours Per Week

To be defined

Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

Not funded by an EU programme

Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?

No

Offer Description

Ultrasonic energy harvesting has lately been introduced as a promising wireless energy transfer solution to power miniaturized wearable and implantable electronic devices for wireless communication and sensing, remote health monitoring, and ultrasound-induced therapies. However, most current ultrasonic energy harvesters operate using bulky, lead-based piezoelectric materials, which still present major limitations. For instance, they are brittle, inflexible, and contain toxic elements, which limits their wearability and biomedical applications. Moreover, the production and disposal of these inorganic materials pose serious environmental and sustainability challenges. 

Plants present a biobased materials’ platform to overcome these challenges due to their piezoelectric behavior. In this project, we aim to design plant-based materials, with enhanced piezoelectricity, for efficient energy harvesting of ultrasonic waves. In order to optimize the electromechanical coupling in these biobased structures, we will exploit the interplay between recently discovered phononic features in plants and existing plant piezoelectricity. In this context, the proposed Ph.D. will focus on identifying phononic features for ultrasonic energy localization in plant-based composite materials and converting plant-based composites into efficient energy harvesters. 

As part of this, the Ph.D. student will help implement the necessary tools to: 

1) Fabricate and characterize micro-structured cellular membranes made from dehydrated plant scaffolds using soft lithography, optical microscopy, nanometrology (i.e. profilometry, AFM, SEM), and image processing. 

2) Measure and analyze the propagation of MHz to GHz ultrasonic waves in the fabricated samples using laser ultrasonics setups and signal processing techniques.

3) Model and evaluate the energy harvesting performance of the designed materials via experimental characterization and numerical modeling of their phononic and piezoelectric behavior, as well as their electromechanical coupling. 

The candidate will be part of the Biophysics team at ILM, and will work under the supervision of Maroun Abi Ghanem and Thomas Dehoux. 

The candidate is expected to have a strong background in acoustics and elastic wave propagation in solids, finite element modeling (preferably in COMSOL Multiphysics), as well as in lasers and the design of optical setups. Knowledge in bioengineering and bio-based materials science, microfabrication, microscopy, and materials characterization using nanometrology and image processing is also highly desirable. 

Requirements
Additional Information
Work Location(s)

Number of offers available

1

Company/Institute

Institut Lumière Matière - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1

Country

France

Geofield

Where to apply

Website

https://jobrxiv.org/job/institut-lumiere-matiere-universite-claude-bernard-lyon…

Contact

Website

https://ilm.univ-lyon1.fr/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&act=2&lang=2

STATUS: EXPIRED