Research Associate / Senior Research Associate

The role 

Applications are invited for the role of Postdoctoral Researcher at the UKRI Innovation and Knowledge Centre (IKC) Transforming Net Zero with Ultrawide Bandgap Semiconductor Device Technology (REWIRE) to provide leading contributions to electrical characterization of wide and ultra-wide bandgap semiconductor materials and devices, including GaN, Gallium Oxide, SiC and diamond, key enabling materials for power and RF electronics. 

At REWIRE, our aim is to accelerate the UK’s ambition for net zero by transforming the next generation of high voltage electronic devices using wide/ultra-wide bandgap compound semiconductors. Led by Bristol (Academic Director: Professor Kuball) with partners Cambridge and Warwick Universities, REWIRE will develop high-voltage power semiconductor devices, essential building blocks for ultra-high voltage (UHV) net-zero enabling all-electric vehicles, charging infrastructure, renewable energy and their High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) grid connections. 

Professor Kuball, Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies, is Director of REWIRE and of the Centre for Device Thermography and Reliability (CDTR), a world-leading research centre focusing on transforming the electrical performance, thermal management and reliability of novel power and RF electronic devices, circuits and packaging. This position also benefits from the CDTR leading the EPSRC programme grant ULTRAlGaN on developing vertical solid state circuit breakers using high composition AlGaN materials and the Chair in Emerging Technologies awarded to Professor Kuball by the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) in 2020, and various US funded programmes the CDTR is partnered in. 

What will you be doing? 

You will conduct research in the electrical characterization and testing of wide and ultra-wide bandgap materials and devices and develop device TCAD models for device design and to complement experiments. 

You will have access to extensive electrical characterization laboratories, including advanced techniques such as the analysis of epitaxial buffer stacks using amongst other approaches, the substrate backbiasing technique Bristol pioneered, and standard techniques such as DIVA, CV, DLTS etc, also complementary facilities like thermal, electroluminescence, electric field imaging, to transmission electron microscopy facilities. You will work with state-of-the art materials and devices from numerous collaborators, also Gallium Oxide materials and devices grown via MOCVD in the CDTR and fabricated into devices in-house. 

You will work with external stakeholders, in particular industry, as well as academic partners within REWIRE and will engage with senior management of REWIRE, to seek further industrial or other funding opportunities, including writing/co-writing of proposals. 

You should apply if 

Applicants should have postgraduate (PhD) experience in physics, materials science or engineering, with a good publication record. The position requires extensive expertise in advanced electrical characterization of wide and ultrawide bandgap materials and/or devices, building of electrical experimentation and TCAD. A willingness to work together with, and co-supervise, PhD students of the CDTR will be necessary. 

For informal queries please contact Professor M. Kuball: martin.kuball@bristol.ac.uk, tel +44(0)117 928 8734. 

Additional information

Contract type: Open ended (Fixed funding until 3/4 2026)

Work pattern: 35 hours / Full time

Salary: £37,099 - £41,732 (Grade I) £41,732 - £46,974 (Grade J)

This advert will close at 23:59 GMT on Wednesday 15th May 2024.

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