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PhD Studentship: Non-crystalline diffraction - elucidating local structure in functional materials.

Employer
Global Academy Jobs
Location
United Kingdom
Closing date
Jun 1, 2017

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Job Details

PhD Studentship: Non-crystalline diffraction - elucidating local structure in functional materials.

Chemistry

Location: Highfield Campus

Closing Date:  Thursday 01 June 2017

Reference: 853017EB

PhD Supervisor: Dr Mark Light                                

co supervisor: Dr Darren Bradshaw

Applications will be considered in the order that they are received, and the position will be considered filled when a suitable candidate has been identified

PhD Description:

Local structure is concerned with individual atom environments and nearest neighbour interactions, which are critical to the efficacy of many modern materials and devices. This contrasts with the long-range, spatially averaged structure determined by traditional powder diffraction techniques. Of particular interest are catalysts, battery materials, semi-conductor alloys, magnetic materials and molecular solids.

Information on local structure is contained in the diffuse scattering intensity that is weak and widely distributed in reciprocal space. This is often ignored, but with the correct approach, valuable information can be extracted and used to augment the average structure model. Indeed, in some cases, it can also be used to probe the structure of essentially amorphous systems.

The project aims to study a range of materials, including zeolite analogues & metal-organic frameworks (MOF’s), and focus on the short-range aperiodic deviations from the long-range crystalline order. The primary technique will be PDF (Pair Distribution Function) analysis, which provides the distribution of atomic distances within a material (amorphous or crystalline). Fundamental to the technique is the ability to collect scattering data to a much higher angle than is possible with the Cu radiation commonly utilized by most laboratory diffractometers. The project will thus initially rely on data collected with UK partners but also provide an opportunity for the successful candidate to utilise central facilities such as the Diamond Light Source synchrotron and the ISIS neutron facility.

Initially the project will investigate selected systems to provide a grounding in data collection and structure refinement and build a set of reproducible results and methods. The data analysis will use XPDFSuite and various in-house software packages available at Diamond; however, these will be augmented and extended to include computational and combinatorial approaches.

The project will then evolve to investigate more complex systems, including amorphous materials and reaction intermediates - these will explore the limits of the technique.

A natural partner to PDF is SAXS (Small Angle X-ray Scattering) which extracts scattering domain size information from low angle data and provides additional information on non-crystalline structure. A further extension to both SAXS and PDF is non-ambient measurements such as variable temperature and atmospheres – it is envisaged the project will also develop into these areas.

This PhD Studentship is funded for 3 years and welcomes excellent applicants from the UK and EU who have or expect to obtain at least an upper second class degree in chemistry/physics/materials science or allied subjects/relevant disciplines and have a strong interest in structural and materials chemistry. Funding will cover fees and a stipend at current research council rates of £ 14,553per annum.

Due to funding restrictions this position is only open to UK/EU applicants

Applications for a PhD in Chemistry should be submitted online at https://studentrecords.soton.ac.uk/BNNRPROD/bzsksrch.P_Search

Please ensure you select the academic session 2017-2018 in the academic year field and click on the Research radio button.  Enter Chemistry in the search text field.

Please place Dr Mark Light in the field for proposed supervisor/project

General enquiries should be made to Dr Mark Light at M.E.Light@soton.ac.uk.  Any queries on the application process should be made to pgafnes@soton.ac.u

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