PhD POSITION funded by NICKEFFECT European Project

TOPIC: Noble-metal-free high-surface-area films with high magnetoelectric performance for energy-efficient and sustainable memory applications

NICKEFFECT, a new project co-funded by the European Commission's Horizon Europe programme, aims to develop novel nickel-based coating materials to replace the scarce and costly platinum (and other noble metals) while ensuring high efficiency in key applications.

A PhD position is available at the “Group of Smart Nanoengineered Materials, Nanomechanics and Nanomagnetism (Gnm3 )” of the Physics Department at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

We are looking for a highly motivated candidate of any nationality that will work on the growth and characterization of cobalt-nickel-based films with high surface area (i.e., ultra-thin sputtered films or electrodeposited coatings with tailored nanoporosity) for magnetic memory applications. The films will be studied by different techniques to assess their suitability for highly energy-efficient voltage-driven magnetic memory devices, including MRAMs with perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, not containing noble metals in their multilayer stacks.

The thesis will be jointly supervised by Dr. Eva Pellicer (Chemist, L’Óreal-Unesco Award) and Prof. Jordi Sort (Physicist, ICREA Professor, holder of an ERC Advanced Grant). A direct collaboration with Singulus Technologies from Germany (https://www.singulus.de/ ) is planned in what concerns the growth of the multilayers for MRAM architectures. The research program is ideally suited to fulfil the objectives of the project in a timely and efficient manner.

We are looking for applicants with a Master of Science degree. Therefore, students with an MSc in Chemistry, Materials Science, Physics or related fields are invited to apply. Previous expertise on electrodeposition/sputtering, materials characterization by electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction or magnetometry, as well as general knowledge in magnetism will be valued.

The duration of the appointment is 3 years, and the annual gross salary is ca. 29K €. For further information, please see: http://jsort-icrea.uab.cat/ .

Interested applicants should send a full CV, a Letter of Interest and the Contact Details of two senior researchers which could support their application before 30/08/2022 to [email protected] or [email protected] .