Post doctoral scholarship (2 years) in surface and electronic properties of multi-metal oxides

The Department of Physics at Umeå University is offering a postdoctoral scholarship in structure and electronic properties of multi-metal oxides. The scholarship is full-time for two years and the start date is August 1st 2025 or by agreement.

Project Description

You will join the Nanostructured Functional Materials group where we investigate the surface properties and electronic structure of multi-component nanomaterials. You will participate in the project “Ultra-low Usage of Noble Metals for Water Electrolysis,” which explores the potential of multi-metal oxides as hosts for highly active noble metals.

As postdoctoral researcher you will have the opportunity to:

• Gain expertise in non-equilibrium production techniques to create complex metal oxides with varying composition,
• To develop innovative methods to introduce and control structural disorder within these materials,
• To study the electronic properties of metal oxide surfaces using spectroscopic techniques and establish a correlation between electronic properties and structural disorder. 

You will collaborate closely with other members of the group as well as external academic partners. For information on relevant background research, please refer to our earlier publications: doi.org/10.1038/s44172-023-00080-5 and doi.org/10.1021/acsami.4c10234. The scholarship is for two years and is financed by the Carl Tryggers Foundation. The scholarship amounts to 336 000 SEK per year and is tax-free.

Qualifications
To qualify as a postdoctoral scholarship holder, the postdoctoral fellow is required to have completed a doctoral degree or a foreign degree deemed equivalent to a doctoral degree. This qualification requirements must be fulfilled no later than at the time of the decision about scholarship recipient. Priority should be given to candidates who completed their doctoral degree, according to what is stipulated in the paragraph above, no later than three years prior to the decision date for the scholarship recipient. If there are special reasons, candidates who completed their doctoral degree prior to that may also be eligible. Special reasons include absence due to illness, parental leave, appointments of trust in trade union organizations, military service, or similar circumstances, as well as clinical practice or other forms of appointment/assignment relevant to the subject area.

Doctoral degree should be within experimental physics, material science, or equivalent. 

Fluency in English is required. 

Previous experience in the following areas is required; 

• Synthesis of nanomaterials, 
• Characterization methods for metal oxides such as Raman spectroscopy, x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, x-ray powder diffraction, and
• Experience in chemistry of metal oxides. 

Documented experience in x-ray absorption spectroscopy is meriting. 

The candidate should be highly motivated and have the ability to do research independently as well as a part of a research group. It is also expected that the candidate has documented skills in preparing data for publication and writing manuscripts.

Application

A full application should include:

• Cover letter stating your motivations for applying and summarizing your qualifications for the position, your previous research experience as well as your experience in the area mentioned above (max. one page).
• Curriculum vitae (CV) with publication list.
• Certified copies of degrees, grades, and other relevant certificates.
• Copy of doctoral thesis.
• Contact information to two persons willing to act as references.

The application should be written in English (preferably) or Swedish and attached documents should be in Word or PDF format. The application should be registered via Umeå University’s e-recruitment system Varbi and submitted by the deadline March 1st 2025.

Further information

Please contact Assoc. Prof. Eduardo Gracia, eduardo.gracia@umu.se

We look forward to receiving your application!