Research Positions at Northwestern University

  1. Post-Doctoral fellowship in Solid-State Optoelectronic Device Physics
  2. Post-Doctoral fellowship in Advanced Semiconductors and Devices
  3. Post-Doctoral fellowship in multi-junction perovskite solar cells
  4. Dunn-Sargent Jointly-advised Post-Doctoral Fellowships in CO2 capture and upgrade: Technoeconomic analysis (TEA), life-cycle assessment (LCA), and process design and optimization
  5. Post-Doctoral Fellowships in Electrochemistry: Electrochemical synthesis of alcohols, multi-carbon products: electrochemical systems and process design
  6. Post-Doctoral Fellowships in electrified capture and upgrade of CO2 on the path to sustainable aviation fuels and decarbonized chemicals: Electrochemical systems and process design
  7. Research Associate – Lead Engineer, Perovskite Solar Cells and Modules

 

Post-Doctoral fellowship in Solid-State Optoelectronic Device Physics

We are seeking a highly motivated and talented Postdoctoral Researcher to join our team focused on emerging optoelectronic devices. The successful candidate will contribute to the design, fabrication, testing, modeling, and analysis of solar cells and photodetectors to advance understanding and optimization of these devices. This position offers an exciting opportunity to work in a collaborative and innovative research environment, pushing the boundaries of next-generation solid-state optoelectronics.

Responsibilities: 

  • Focus on achieving original first-authored publications in interdisciplinary academic journals.
  • Conduct device modeling and (electrical and photophysical) characterizations to validate the models.
  • Collaborate with device experts to analyze/improve energy-loss mechanisms, degradation mechanisms, and transport properties.
  • Mentor and supervise graduate students and research assistants working on related projects.
  • Contribute to grant writing and actively seek external funding opportunities to support ongoing research efforts.

Qualifications:

    • Ph.D. in Physics, Electrical Engineering, Materials Science, or a related field, with strong expertise in solid-state semiconducting devices.
  • Expertise in modeling of optoelectronic devices, preferably with a specialization in solar cells and/or photodetectors.
  • Proficiency in device simulation software such as Sentaurus, Silvaco, TCAD, Setfos, and experience with device modeling tools (e.g., MATLAB, Python, C++, or equivalent).
  • Profound understanding of semiconductor physics and solid-state device operation principles.
  • Additional qualifications of interest:
    • Device fabrication skills and experience with at least one {colloidal quantum dots, 2D materials, perovskites, silicon, organics} or other advanced semiconductors.
    • Experience with device characterization and analytical methods, such as optical (e.g. PL, TRPL, TA, TPC) and electrical (e.g. EL, EQE, impedance spectroscopy) measurements.
  • Experience in analyzing experimental data and working collaboratively with other experimentalists.
  • Excellent written and oral communication skills, with a track record of publishing research findings in peer-reviewed journals.
  • Ability to work independently and as part of a multidisciplinary team, effectively managing time and prioritizing tasks.

Salary: $61,008 USD/year

Expected Start Date: Mar 1, 2025, or as soon as possible thereafter

Appointment: Term – (12 months) with the potential for renewal

How to apply:

Please include in your application package a cover letter; your full academic CV; information on 3 referees that are prepared to be consulted using the link here by Feb 15, 2025. If you have any questions, please contact: hiring_2025@fastmail.com. Evaluation of candidates will begin immediately and continue until filled. 

Posting Date: Jan 09, 2025

Closing Date: Feb 15, 2025

Post-Doctoral fellowship in Advanced Semiconductors and Devices

We are seeking a highly motivated and talented Postdoctoral Researcher to join our team of emerging semiconductors and microelectronics. Our research focuses on discovering new interface configuration for logic devices—like high-k gate dielectrics and advanced channel materials—and using these emerging materials to power high-performance FETs. Also, we focus on the next-generation neuromorphic computing device based on crossbar array architectures. Our approach is to unite basic and applied science to pursue this mission-oriented goal. Our team gathers and relies upon experts in chemistry (physical chemistry, surface chemistry, computational chemistry), physics (device physics and materials physics) and engineering (materials synthesis/properties/processing, electrical/device engineering), often with a significant role for AI/machine learning in seeking to accelerate discovery.

Responsibilities: 

  • Focus on achieving original first-authored publications in interdisciplinary academic journals.
  • Design and optimize synthetic routes for emerging semiconducting materials, utilizing various synthesis techniques including solution-based methods, vapor deposition (PVD, CVD, and ALD), and other relevant cleanroom techniques (E-beam lithography, photo-lithography, dry or wet etching).
  • Characterization of the developed materials and fabricated devices made of these materials.
  • Mentor and supervise graduate students and research assistants working on related projects.
  • Contribute to grant writing and actively seek external funding opportunities to support ongoing research efforts.

Qualifications:

  • Ph.D. in materials science, electrical engineering, chemistry, physics, or a related field
  • Strong background and expertise in materials synthesis and characterization techniques
    • Cleanroom experience
    • Materials synthesis, surface chemistry, and analytical characterization
    • Materials science and photo-physical characterization methods
    • Deep knowledge of solid-state semiconductors and physics
    • Device fabrication skills and experience with at least one {colloidal quantum dots, 2D materials, perovskites, silicon, organics} or other novel semiconductors
  • Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, and the ability to work effectively in a collaborative research environment

 

Salary: $61,008 USD/year

Expected Start Date: Mar 1, 2025, or as soon as possible thereafter

Appointment: Term – (12 months) with the potential for renewal

How to apply:

Please include in your application package a cover letter; your full academic CV; information on 3 referees that are prepared to be consulted using the link here by Feb 15, 2025. If you have any questions, please contact: hiring_2025@fastmail.com. Evaluation of candidates will begin immediately and continue until filled. 

Posting Date: Jan 09 2025

Closing Date: Feb 15, 2025

 

Post-Doctoral fellowship in multi-junction perovskite solar cells

Prof. Edward H. Sargent is seeking highly motivated and talented Postdoctoral Fellows to join our research team in synthesizing key functional materials, developing device prototypes, and characterizing next-generation multi-junction solar cells and modules. Our specific programs include the development of efficient and stable wide bandgap (>1.6 eV) and narrow bandgap (1-1.3 eV) perovskite solar devices. The successful candidates will have a strong background in materials science, chemistry, or a related field, with experience in synthesizing and characterizing novel materials for optoelectronic applications.

Responsibilities:

  • Focus on achieving original first-authored publications in interdisciplinary academic journals.
  • Design and optimize synthetic routes for fabricating high-quality perovskite materials, utilizing various synthesis techniques including solution-based methods, vapor deposition, and other relevant techniques.
  • Prototype solar cell devices and conduct electrical and photophysical characterizations
  • Mentor and supervise graduate students and research assistants working on related projects.
  • Contribute to grant writing and actively seek external funding opportunities to support ongoing research efforts.

Qualifications:

  • Ph.D. in materials science, chemistry, physics, or a related field
  • Strong background and expertise in materials synthesis and characterization techniques
  • Familiarity with multi-junction solar cells and relevant device physics.
  • Experience with reliability and accelerated testing
  • Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal, and the ability to work effectively in a collaborative research environment

 

Salary: $61,008 USD/year

Expected Start Date: Mar 1, 2025, or as soon as possible thereafter

Appointment: Term – (12 months) with the potential for renewal

How to apply:

Please include in your application package a cover letter; your full academic CV; information on 3 referees that are prepared to be consulted using the link here by Feb 15, 2025. If you have any questions, please contact: hiring_2025@fastmail.com. Evaluation of candidates will begin immediately and continue until filled. 

Posting Date: Jan 09, 2025

Closing Date: Feb 15, 2025

Dunn-Sargent Jointly-advised Post-Doctoral Fellowships in CO2 capture and upgrade: Technoeconomic analysis (TEA), life-cycle assessment (LCA), and process design and optimization

Areas of Research:

Prof. Jennifer Dunn and Prof. Edward H. Sargent seek jointly to attract post-doctoral fellows analyzing the path to a timely and just energy transition. Elements will include the analysis of CO2 capture, CO2 upgrade to fuels and chemicals, and the defossiilization of electricity, industrial processes, and agriculture.

The incumbents will join an interdisciplinary team and will contribute expertise that includes:

  • Life cycle assessment and technoeconomic analysis, informed by process optimization and uncertainty analysis;
  • The computational and experimental investigation of CO2 capture and release (including electrified), as well as CO2 electrocatalytic upgrade.

Flows of interest/to be evaluated include electrocatalytic processes, biological processes and thermocatalytic processes, including combined/cascade approaches thereof.

Specific topics and targets for analysis include:

  • Direct air capture (DAC) of CO2, including capture, transport, and sequestration; as a function of the source of electricity, including analysis of its intermittency, its carbon intensity; and with analysis of the cost and overall carbon intensity of the related capital plant and its maintenance.
  • The production of food (e.g. edible lipids and proteins) employing CO2 and low-carbon-intensity electricity as feedstocks.
  • Electrochemical synthesis and recirculation of nitrogen compounds needed in protein biosynthesis.

Description of Duties: Successful candidates will place their major focus on achieving original first-authored publications in interdisciplinary academic journals. They will work effectively in a team environment and will value the chance to reach across disciplines and to work with partners in industry and at our partner U.S. Department of Energy national labs. Post-doctoral fellows will take advantage of the opportunity to increase their mentoring skills, helping doctoral students to develop as scientist-engineers.

Essential Qualifications:

  • Applicants must have received, or be close to receiving, their PhD degree in an area of chemical engineering, bioengineering, civil engineering, environmental sciences, chemistry, materials science, or a related field.
  • Applicants must possess at least one of the following, or transferable skills:
    • Expertise in topics related to the bioreactors, thermocatalysis, electrocatalysis, and/or carbon capture and separation processes.
    • Expertise in topics related to net GHG emissions associated with the end-to-end process of crop production.
    • Demonstrated ability to perform LCA and TEA and to write related scientific reports.
    • Experience in process modeling, including in the use of tools such as Aspen Plus, CHEMCAD, SuperPro.
    • Experience levering open-source software such as GREET, openLCA, SimaPro, or GaBi.

Salary: $61,884 USD/year and above based on experience.

Expected Start Date: Feb 15, 2025, or as soon as possible thereafter

Appointment: Term – (12 months) with the potential for renewal

How to apply:

Please include in your application package a cover letter; your full academic CV; information on 2 referees that are prepared to be consulted; your two most relevant publications. Please send as a single combined PDF whose file name includes your first and last names to Melissa Rosen (melissa.rosen@northwestern.edu) with the subject line “Dunn-Sargent TEA/LCA PDF Application” on or before Jan 15, 2025. Evaluation of candidates will begin immediately and continue until filled.

Posting Date: November 11, 2024

Closing Date: Jan 15, 2025

 

Post-Doctoral Fellowships in Electrochemistry: Electrochemical synthesis of alcohols, multi-carbon products: electrochemical systems and process design

Area of Research: Our research focuses on using electricity to power chemical transformations involving carbon. The goal is to reduce the carbon intensity of the production of chemicals and fuels that, today, mostly rely on fossil hydrocarbons. We seek especially to lower the intensity of large-scale commodity chemicals and fuels.

Our approach is to unite basic and applied science in order to pursue this mission-oriented goal. Our team seeks to attract experts in chemistry (electrochemistry, physical chemistry, operando spectroscopy and surface chemistry) and engineering (membrane, reactor design, materials processing, and chemical engineering).

Specific programs we lead include:

  • CO2 upcycling to liquid products (e.g. propanol, acrylic acid) and other multi-carbon products.
  • Electrochemical systems and process designs that enable durable and efficient operation; electrolyzers and reactors that minimize energy loss and produce concentrated liquid products. Systems approaches the minimize total end-to-end production costs, including the totality of electrolyzer + product separation costs.
  • Electrolyzer subsystem engineering, including advanced ion-exchange membranes, separators, and gas diffusion electrodes.

Description of Duties: Successful candidates will place their major focus on achieving original first-authored publications in interdisciplinary academic journals. They will work effectively in a team environment and will value the chance to reach across disciplines, and to work with partners in industry and at our partner U.S. Department of Energy national labs. Post-doctoral fellows will take advantage of the opportunity to increase their mentoring skills, helping doctoral students to develop as next-generation scientists-engineers.

Essential Qualifications:

  • Applicants must have received, or be close to receiving, their PhD degree in an area of science or engineering.
  • Applicants are sought who have backgrounds in a field of engineering or science relevant to CO2 chemistry, electrochemistry, membrane engineering and membrane science. We also seek candidates with expertise from relevant allied fields, such as thermocatalysis, transport phenomena, photocatalysis, fuel cells, batteries, water-splitting electrolyzers, and high-temperature/high-pressure reactors.
  • Applicants must possess at least one of the following, or transferable skills:
    • Systems experts focused on the design, fabrication, and investigation of flow systems and reactors, such as electrochemical flow cells, membrane electrode assembly devices, membrane reactors, electrochemical reactors with variable pressure and temperature. Researchers with allied experience in chemical separations will be prioritized.
    • Candidates with expertise in membrane development, such as preparation of polymer membranes, functionalization of membranes, kinetic studies of ion transport, and related membrane engineering in electrolysis.
    • Candidates with expertise in fundamental electrochemistry, such as studies of ion-intercalation mechanisms, charge transfer models, PCET mechanisms, field effects, and electrolyte engineering.
    • Candidates with expertise in the multiscales simulation of electrochemical systems, such as using finite-element models to study the combination of charge transport, ion transport, and neutral species transport, across electrolytes, membranes/separators, and overall systems.
  • Applicants with the following skills/experience will gain competitive advantage during evaluation
    • Multiphysics modelling such as COMSOL
    • Process modelling such as Aspen
    • Electrochemical reactor scale-up

Salary: $61,008 USD/year

Expected Start Date: Feb. 1, 2025, or as soon as possible thereafter

Appointment: Term – (12 months) with the potential for renewal

How to apply:

Please include in your application package a cover letter; your full academic CV; information on 2 referees that are prepared to be consulted; your two most relevant publications. Please send as a single combined PDF whose file name includes your first and last names to Melissa Rosen (melissa.rosen@northwestern.edu) with the subject line CO2 PDF Application by Jan. 15, 2025. Evaluation of candidates will begin immediately and continue until filled.

Posting Date: Nov. 21, 2024

Closing Date: March 15, 2025

 

Post-Doctoral Fellowships in electrified capture and upgrade of CO2 on the path to sustainable aviation fuels and decarbonized chemicals: Electrochemical systems and process design

Area of Research: Our research focuses on using electricity to power chemical transformations involving carbon. The goal is to reduce the carbon intensity of the production of chemicals and fuels that, today, mostly rely on fossil hydrocarbons. We seek especially to lower the intensity of large-scale commodity chemicals and fuels.

Our approach is to unite basic and applied science in order to pursue this mission-oriented goal. Our team seeks to attract experts in chemistry (electrochemistry, physical chemistry including operando spectroscopy and surface chemistry, computational chemistry) and engineering (especially materials synthesis/properties/processing, electrical engineering, chemical engineering), often with a significant role for AI/machine learning in seeking to accelerate discovery.

The specific programs we lead include:

  • Reactive capture: upgrading CO2 directly from the captured state.
  • CO2/CO upcycling, focusing especially on creating ever more valuable and complex molecules.
  • CO2 capture and release, emphasizing reducing the energy cost of CO2 release, and electrifying the full process.
  • Catalytic/continuous reactors for thermocatalytic processes
  • High-temperature/pressurized electrochemical systems,
  • Electrolyzer scale-up.

Description of Duties: Successful candidates will place their major focus on achieving original first-authored publications in interdisciplinary academic journals. They will work effectively in a team environment and will value the chance to reach across disciplines, and to work with partners in industry and at our partner U.S. Department of Energy national labs. Post-doctoral fellows will take advantage of the opportunity to increase their mentoring skills, helping doctoral students to develop as scientist-engineers.

Essential Qualifications:

  • Applicants must have received, or be close to receiving, their PhD degree in an area of science or engineering.
  • Applicants are sought who have backgrounds in a field of engineering or science relevant to CO2 chemistry and electrochemistry. We also seek candidates with expertise from relevant allied fields, such as transport phenomena, membrane engineering, membrane science, thermocatalysis, photocatalysis, fuel cells, batteries, water-splitting electrolyzers, and high-temperature/high-pressure reactors.
  • Applicants must possess at least one of the following, or transferable skills:
    • Systems experts focused on the design, fabrication, and investigation of flow systems and reactors, such as electrochemical flow cells, membrane electrode assembly devices, membrane reactors, spiral-wound modules, hollow fiber modules and gas-liquid contactors;
    • The design of materials for electrocatalysis and/or CO2 capture and release; mechanistic investigations of reactive pathways;
    • Materials chemistry/synthesis including of laminate/2D materials, metal oxides, metal hydroxides, high-entropy alloys and oxides, single-atom and other advanced catalysts;
    • Candidates with expertise in fundamental electrochemistry, such as studies of ion-intercalation mechanisms, charge transfer models, PCET mechanisms, field effects, and electrolyte engineering
  • Applicants with the following skills/experience will gain competitive advantage during evaluation
    • Multiphysics modelling such as COMSOL
    • Process modelling such as Aspen and Aspen plus
    • Techno-economic assessment
    • Life-cycle assessment, such as using Greenhouse gases, Regulated Emissions, and Energy use in Technologies (GREET) model
    • Electrochemical reactor scale-up

Salary: $61,008 USD/year

Expected Start Date: Apr. 1, 2025, or as soon as possible thereafter

Appointment: Term – (12 months) with the potential for renewal

How to apply:

Please include in your application package a cover letter; your full academic CV; information on 2 referees that are prepared to be consulted; your two most relevant publications. Please send as a single combined PDF whose file name includes your first and last names to Melissa Rosen (melissa.rosen@northwestern.edu) with the subject line CO2 PDF Application-System.

Evaluation of candidates will begin on February 5, 2025. We encourage applicants to apply before this date.

Posting Date: Jan. 14, 2023

 

Research Associate – Lead Engineer, Perovskite Solar Cells and Modules

The Sargent Group is seeking a highly motivated Research Associate to serve the role of Lead Engineer, Perovskite Solar Cells and Modules in our team, focusing on the enhancement and optimization of baseline performance for single-junction and multi-junction perovskite solar cells and modules. This position emphasizes device engineering, e.g. thin film coating, process optimization, device characterization. It provides an exciting opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge solar energy research within a collaborative and innovative environment.

Responsibilities

  • Enhance and optimize the baseline performance of single-junction and multi-junction perovskite solar cells and modules.
  • Perform thin-film deposition using advanced preparation techniques.
  • Operate, maintain, and troubleshoot laboratory instruments for device fabrication and testing.
  • Collaborate with the team to develop and refine scalable fabrication processes for solar cells and modules.
  • Assist in maintaining a well-organized and efficient laboratory environment.

Qualifications

  • Master’s or PhD degree in materials science, engineering, applied physics, or a related field. 
  • Proficiency in thin-film deposition techniques, such as spin-coating, evaporation, or sputtering, slot-die coating, blade coating, etc.
  • Hands-on experience with equipment operation and maintenance.
  • Previous experience in fabricating single-junction and multi-junction perovskite solar cells and modules is highly desirable.
  • Strong problem-solving skills and attention to detail.
  • Excellent teamwork and communication abilities.

Salary: $80,000 USD/year

Expected Start Date: Mar 1, 2025, or as soon as possible thereafter

Appointment: Term – (12 months) with the potential for renewal

How to apply:

Please include in your application package a cover letter; your full academic CV; information on 3 referees that are prepared to be consulted using the link here by Feb 15, 2025. If you have any questions, please contact: hiring_2025@fastmail.com. Evaluation of candidates will begin immediately and continue until filled. 

Posting Date: Jan 14, 2025

Closing Date: Feb 15, 2025