PhD Student position at TU Darmstadt, Germany

The Ceramics group at the Department of Materials and Earth Science at TU Darmstadt, Germany, is offering a PhD Student position for a DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) funded project on:

“Understanding stress-oxidation interaction on grain boundary failure: in situ microscale crack propagation experiments”.

Your tasks:

The project involves experimental work and you will be responsible for preparing micro-cantilevers using focused ion beam (FIB), and testing them under coupled/de-coupled mechanical and thermal oxidation conditions using nanoindentation technique. In addition, you will also work in close collaboration with leading research groups (at TU Darmstadt, Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung, and abroad) on structural investigations using high resolution scanning electron microscopy for characterization of microstructure (mainly grain boundaries) using transmission electron microscopy.

Your profile:

Essential requirements:

• Excellent Master degree in Engineering Mechanics, Materials Science, or Applied Physics.

• Strong interest in scientific research and above-average motivation to manage the PhD project.

• Very good knowledge of spoken and written English.

Desired skills:

• Strong academic background in one or more of the following subjects: solid mechanics (preferably fracture mechanics), solid state physics, high temperature oxidation, metallurgy.

• Prior experience or Master thesis in a related topic/field of research.

• Hands-on experience in one or more of the following topics: nanoindentation, SEM, EBSD, micro-mechanical testing, finite element simulation.

• Publications in peer-reviewed journal.

• Demonstrated ability for independent scientific research.

Application:

Applications should include scientific CV (including list of publications in peer-reviewed journals, if any), courses and grades, motivation letter, recommendation letters and contact data from two references.

Please send applications to: fang@ceramics.tudarmstadt.de

Application deadline: May 31, 2019

More information can be found in the following document: « PhD position in TU Darmstadt_2019.pdf »