Two Master internship on nanotwinned gold thin film at the Institut Pprime, University of Poitiers, France

The Institut Pprime is looking for two master student (last year) for internship on nanotwinned gold thin films.

First internship:

Subject: Atomic scale simulations of nanotwinned gold thin films.

Aim: The aim of this internship is to establish via atomistic scale simulations the elastic strain field associated with different nanotwinned thin film microstructures. Equilibrium conditions will be determined using semi-empirical potentials, that are reliable for gold. In a first step, a simple configuration with a unique twin and periodic boundary conditions will be worked out. This will allow studying the impact of the twins’ density and thickness.More sophisticated and larger systems will then be considered, with several twins having different orientations.

Dates: the internship is available from February to September 2020, with a vacation period in August.

Required skills: Applicant has to be in final year of Master and/or engineering school with a background in solid-state physics or materials science. A strong interest in computer simulations.

More information on the subject, and application can be found in the following document:

« stage_M2_Brochard-Durinck_PtyMet_2019_en.pdf »

Second internship:

Subject: Preparation and characterization of homogeneous nanotwinned gold thin films

Aim: Various optimizations of the sputtering conditions are envisaged: deposition temperature, substrate, acceleration voltage, etc. The student will work with several techniques:

• Physical vapor deposition (sputtering) of the thin films.
• Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) (i) bright field images with large field of view of the sample, (ii) dark field images to select one chosen twin family, (iii) in high-resolution mode to show the roughness of the twin boundaries.
• X-Ray diffraction to determine with pole figures the twinned volume on a representative (millimetric) scale.
• Focused ion beam to prepare thin foils for TEM and to observe the film surfaces in scanning electron microscopy.

Dates: The internship is available from February to September 2020, with a vacation period in August.

Required skills: Applicant has to be in final year of Master and/or engineering school with a background in solid-state physics or materials science. A strong interest in computer simulations.

More information on the subject, and application can be found in the following document:

« stage_M2_Michel_Renault_PtyMet_2019_en.pdf »