Research Associate

Department
The School of Physics, Engineering and Technology brings physicists and engineers together to push the frontiers of knowledge, foster innovation and meet the grand challenges facing society. Our aim is to deliver world-leading research in both fundamental and applied areas whilst developing new technologies that work for the public good, in an environment where everyone can thrive.

As a School, equality, diversity, and inclusion are central to our culture and we strive to provide a working environment which allows all staff and students to contribute fully, to flourish, and to excel. We aim to ensure that there is a supportive and egalitarian culture at all levels and across all staff groups and offer a range of family friendly, inclusive employment policies, flexible working arrangements, staff engagement forums, campus facilities and services to support staff from different backgrounds. We are proud to hold Juno Champion and Athena Swan silver awards, which recognise our commitment to creating an equitable and fully inclusive environment. We aim to inspire young people to engage with science and engineering through our outreach work.

We are seeking a Research Associate to work on the EPSRC-funded project “Tailoring structure–property relationships in metal halide perovskites at an atomistic level”, a collaboration between the Universities of Oxford (Herz, Nellist, Johnston and Snaith groups) and York (McKenna group).

Hybrid metal-halide perovskite solar cells have achieved very high certified power conversion efficiencies for single junction and tandem devices with silicon. However, challenges remain to be addressed, including long-term stability and semiconductor quality across the full bandgap range. Material microstructure has emerged as a critical parameter here, influencing charge-carrier transport and lifetimes, as well as ionic motion and material stability. The overarching vision for this project is to provide a step-change in this area, by establishing structure-property relationships at an atomic-resolution level. These advances will be accomplished through a co-ordinated collaborative programme bringing together a team of leading experts in advanced electron microscopy imaging, first-principles modelling, metal halide semiconductor thin-film and device fabrication, and experimental analysis of optoelectronic properties.

Role
Your role at York (under the guidance of Prof McKenna) will be to model the structure and properties of extended defects in hybrid metal-halide perovskites using first-principles approaches [e.g., see Applied Physics Reviews 11, 011308 (2024) for a recent overview]. You will work closely with two other Research Associates to be appointed at Oxford (one focusing on preparation of thin-films and their spectroscopic characterisation and another focusing on atomic-resolution transmission electron microscopy imaging) to reveal causal links between material microstructure, electronic properties and degradation pathways.

Skills, Experience & Qualifications Needed
You will have:

• A PhD in Physics, Chemistry or related Physical Science.
• A track-record of high-quality peer-reviewed publications.
• Experience of modelling perovskite materials and/or modelling defects in materials.
• A proven ability to apply density functional theory methods for predictive modelling of the structure and properties of materials.
• Excellent communications skills.

Interview date: TBC

For informal enquiries: please contact Prof Keith McKenna (keith.mckenna@york.ac.uk) or pet-admin@york.ac.uk.

The University strives to be diverse and inclusive – a place where we can ALL be ourselves.

We particularly encourage applications from people who identify as Black, Asian or from a Minority Ethnic background, who are underrepresented at the University.

We offer family friendly, flexible working arrangements, with forums and inclusive facilities to support our staff. #EqualityatYork

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