Postdoc: Light-induced damage at the atomic scale using in situ TEM

Work Activities
What are the atomic-scale processes behind light-induced damage?

Light-induced damage presents a challenge in applications of high-power lasers, including semiconductor device manufacturing. For the prevention of damage, it is particularly interesting to identify the changes to materials before any degradation of performance is discernible. The emergence of damage is often attributed to the creation of defects or the enhanced interaction of defect sites with external stimuli. Which defects are crucial in damage processes and how different defect types respond to laser pulses, however, remains unresolved at the atomic scale. In this project, you will address these questions using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) with in-situ laser exposure. You will shed light on the atomic-scale mechanisms of defect generation and damage below the threshold for macroscopic changes, and connect material properties to the light-induced damage patterns of nanometer thick layers.

Your role as postdoc

You will perform your research in a collaboration between the Light-Matter Interaction group and the Materials & Surface Science for EUVL group at ARCNL, the Hybrid Nanosystems group at AMOLF, and the semiconductor equipment manufacturing company ASML. With guidance from these project partners, you will develop a research plan to resolve the atomic-scale details of light-induced modifications to thin films in the context of nanolithography and optical metrology. You will operate a state-of-the-art aberration corrected TEM with unique light incoupling and ultrafast time-resolution capabilities. You will have access to thin-film preparation and surface characterization facilities at ARCNL and AMOLF to fabricate thin layers and characterize their composition and structure. With the help of experts in the respective methods, you will grow layers for the TEM experiments and have the option to pre- and post-characterize them with several techniques such as atomic-force microscopy (AFM), optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), and Raman spectroscopy.

Qualifications

• You have a PhD in Physics, Physical Chemistry, or Materials Science and hands-on experience with transmission electron microscopy.
• You are independent and have good project management skills.
• Good verbal and written communication skills (in English) are required.
• A background in light-matter interaction, laser spectroscopy, thin-film growth, or surface science is considered an advantage for the project.

Work environment
ARCNL performs fundamental research, focusing on the physics and chemistry involved in current and future key technologies in nanolithography, primarily for the semiconductor industry. While the academic setting and research style are geared towards establishing scientific excellence, the topics in ARCNL’s research program are intimately connected with the interests of the industrial partner ASML. The institute is located at Amsterdam Science Park and currently employs about 100 persons of which 65 are ambitious (young) researchers from all over the globe. www.arcnl.nl

Working conditions
The position is intended as full-time (40 hours / week, 12 months / year) appointment in the service of the Netherlands Foundation of Scientific Research Institutes (NWO-I) for the duration of 2 years, with a salary in scale 10 (CAO-OI) and a range of employment benefits. ARCNL assists any new foreign Postdoc with housing and visa applications and compensates their transport costs and furnishing expenses.

More information?
For further information about the position, please contact:

Dr. Roland Bliem
Group leader for Materials and Surface Science for EUV Lithography
E-mail: r.bliem@arcnl.nl
Phone: +31- 20 851 7100

Dr. Wiebke Albrecht
Group leader for Hybrid Nanosystems
E-mail: W.Albrecht@amolf.nl
Phone: +31- 20 754 7100

Prof.dr. Paul Planken
Group leader for Light-Matter Interaction
E-mail: P.Planken@arcnl.nl
Phone: +31- 20 851 7100

Application
You can respond to this vacancy online on the ARCNL webpage.
Please send your:

• Resume;
• Motivation why you want to perform the outlined research (max. 1 page).

It is important to us to know why you want to join our team. This means that we will only consider your application if it includes your motivation letter.

Online screening may be part of the selection.

Commercial activities in response to this ad are not appreciated.

Diversity code
ARCNL is highly committed to an inclusive and diverse work environment: we want to develop talent and creativity by bringing together people from different backgrounds and cultures. We recruit and select on the basis of competencies and talents. We strongly encourage anyone with the right qualifications to apply for the vacancy, regardless of age, gender, origin, sexual orientation or physical ability.

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PhD: Charging and secondary electron emission for electron microscopy

Work Activities
The goal of the project is to better understand charging of surfaces and how it affects materials properties such as secondary electron emission in the context of scanning electron microscopy for metrology applications. The experiments on materials used in the semiconductor industry will be interpreted in the context of electron scattering simulations performed by collaboration partners. As a PhD student you will use state of the art electron spectroscopy and surface preparation tools to unravel the physical and chemical changes at surfaces induced by charging. You will determine how the secondary electron yields of surfaces are affected by the presence of excess charge, contamination, and defects.

This project is part of a larger KIC project, “Foundations for electron-beam metrology and inspection”, in which knowledge institutes Delft University of Technology and ARCNL are working together with high-tech company ASML. You will perform this project in close collaboration with a team of PhD students and postdocs working on this project at ARCNL and at Delft University of Technology, and with researchers at the Dutch semiconductor manufacturing equipment company ASML. At ARCNL you will be embedded in the Materials & Surface Science for EUVL group of dr. Roland Bliem and work closely together also with the Light/Matter Interaction group of Prof. dr. Paul Planken.

Qualifications
You have a university degree in physics, physical chemistry, or a related field that satisfies the Dutch university requirement to enter into a PhD program.

Good verbal and written communication skills (in English) are required.

Prior experience with surface science, ultra-high vacuum, and spectroscopy techniques is considered an advantage for the project.

Work environment
ARCNL performs fundamental research, focusing on the physics and chemistry involved in current and future key technologies in nanolithography, primarily for the semiconductor industry. While the academic setting and research style are geared towards establishing scientific excellence, the topics in ARCNL’s research program are intimately connected with the interests of the industrial partner ASML. The institute is located at Amsterdam Science Park and currently employs about 100 persons of which 65 are ambitious (young) researchers from all over the globe. www.arcnl.nl

Working conditions
The position is intended as full-time (40 hours / week, 12 months / year) appointment in the service of the Netherlands Foundation of Scientific Research Institutes (NWO-I) for the duration of four years, with a starting salary of gross € 2,781 per month and a range of employment benefits. After successful completion of the PhD research a PhD degree will be granted at a Dutch University. Several courses are offered, specially developed for PhD-students. A favorable tax agreement, the ‘30% ruling’, may apply to non-Dutch applicants. ARCNL assists any new foreign PhD-student with housing and visa applications and compensates their transport costs and furnishing expenses.

More information?
For further information about the position, please contact:
dr. Roland Bliem
Group leader Materials and Surface Science for EUVL
E-mail: r.bliem@arcnl.nl
Phone: +31 (0)20-851 7100

Application
You can respond to this vacancy online via the button below.

Online screening may be part of the selection.

Diversity code
ARCNL is highly committed to an inclusive and diverse work environment: we want to develop talent and creativity by bringing together people from different backgrounds and cultures. We recruit and select on the basis of competencies and talents. We strongly encourage anyone with the right qualifications to apply for the vacancy, regardless of age, gender, origin, sexual orientation or physical ability.

Commercial activities in response to this ad are not appreciated.

Phd - student: Ultrafast photoacoustics for semiconductor metrology

Work Activities
Background
In semiconductor device manufacturing, optical metrology tools are used determine the position of a Si wafer by measuring light, scattered from so-called alignment markers. When these markers become covered in materials that are optically opaque, measuring scattered light becomes a challenge. A possible solution to that challenge is the use of photoacoustics. There, a pump pulse rapidly heats up an absorbing material, launching a strain wave in the process. That strain wave propagates to and reflects off the marker, creating a strain-wave copy. At the surface, light measures this strain wave copy of the marker allowing us to indirectly observe the hidden markers. The process works, but signal strength must be improved to make real-world applications possible.

Project goal
In this project you will work towards improving the signal-to-noise ratio in photoacoustics by using hitherto underexplored techniques, aimed at both increasing signal strength and decreasing noise. This can for example be done by optimizing the optical wavelengths used for the generation and detection of the strain waves and by using optical transitions to enhance detection sensitivity.

After you join our group, your goal is to design and execute photoacoustics experiments aimed to generate and detect strain waves with femtosecond laser pulses, and to improve the detection signal-to-noise ratio. You will learn to work with high-power femtosecond lasers to perform ultrafast time-resolved reflection and diffraction experiment for the generation and detection of strain waves. You will get acquainted with nonlinear optics, perform experiments on relevant materials, and learn how to analyze your data. The research will be done in close collaboration with the ASML research department.

Qualifications
You have (or soon will have) a MSc degree in physics, chemistry, or materials science or equivalent, to satisfy the Dutch university requirement to enter a PhD program. Previous experience with femtosecond lasers is not required but it would be a plus. An interest in non-linear optics, materials science and chemistry is needed, as are critical thinking, and creative problem-solving skills. Good verbal and written communication skills in English are required.

Work environment
The Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography (ARCNL) focuses on the fundamental physics and chemistry involved in current and future key technologies in nanolithography, primarily for the semiconductor industry. ARCNL is a public-private partnership between the Dutch Research Council (NWO), the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the VU University Amsterdam (VU), associate partner the University of Groningen (RuG), and the semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML. ARCNL is located at the Amsterdam Science Park, The Netherlands, and has a size of approximately 100 scientists and support staff. See also www.arcnl.nl.

About the Light/Matter Interaction group
The research activities of the Light/Matter Interaction group focus on the optical and terahertz response of materials within the context of photo-acoustics and light-induced damage.

Working conditions
The position is intended as full-time (40 hours / week, 12 months / year) appointment in the service of the Netherlands Foundation of Scientific Research Institutes (NWO-I) for the duration of four years, with a starting salary of gross € 2.968,- per month and a range of employment benefits. After successful completion of the PhD research a PhD degree will be granted at a Dutch University. Several courses are offered, specially developed for PhD-students. ARCNL assists any new foreign PhD-student with housing and visa applications and compensates their transport costs and furnishing expenses.

More information?
For further information about the position, please contact Paul Planken: p.planken@arcnl.nl

Application
You can respond to this vacancy online via the button below.

Online screening may be part of the selection.

Diversity code
ARCNL is highly committed to an inclusive and diverse work environment: we want to develop talent and creativity by bringing together people from different backgrounds and cultures. We recruit and select on the basis of competencies and talents. We strongly encourage anyone with the right qualifications to apply for the vacancy, regardless of age, gender, origin, sexual orientation or physical ability.

Commercial activities in response to this ad are not appreciated.

Hydrodynamics of droplet deformation & fragmentation for EUV lithography

Work Activities
This postdoctoral position lies at the interface between fundamental physics and industrial application. It is part of a fully funded Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council titled “Next-Generation Light Source: Driving plasmas to power tomorrow’s nanolithography (MOORELIGHT)”.

Background
Advanced semiconductor devices are produced using extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light at just 13.5nm wavelength. The recent revolutionary introduction of EUV lithography (EUVL) was the culmination of several decades of collaborative work between industry and science – a Project Apollo of the digital age. EUVL is powered by light that is produced in the interaction of high-energy CO2-gas laser pulses with molten tin microdroplets. The use of such lasers leads to low overall efficiency in converting electrical power to useful EUV light. Replacing gas lasers with much more efficient solid-state lasers may significantly improve efficiency, as well as output power. It is currently however unclear what laser wavelength, and what plasma ‘recipe’ should be used. This is because we lack understanding of the underlying complex physics. The goal of project MOORELIGHT is to deliver the missing insight.

Project goal
The EUV-emitting laser-produced plasmas are generated from tin targets carefully shaped (i.e, hydrodynamically deformed) by a series of laser “pre-pulses”. The ability to shape and control these tin targets is critical for the efficient generation of EUV light in current and future light sources. Achieving such a precise control requires a detailed understanding of the underlying hydrodynamic processes.

You will join an interdisciplinary team of several PhD students and postdocs with the objective of understanding the fluid mechanics underlying target formation, ranging from the (in)compressible flow initiated by impact to the various instabilities that lead to the fragmentation of thin tin sheets. You will be responsible for the design, setup, execution, analysis, and interpretation of experiments and simulations. As part of your work, you will closely collaborate with researchers in the Jalaal group at University of Amsterdam.

Qualifications
You have (or soon will have) a PhD related to the field of fluid mechanics. Programming skills (Python and/or C) are required. Good verbal and written communication skills (in English) are required.

Work environment
The Advanced Research Center for Nanolithography (ARCNL) focuses on the fundamental physics and chemistry involved in current and future key technologies in nanolithography, primarily for the semiconductor industry. ARCNL is a public-private partnership between the Dutch Research Council (NWO), the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the VU University Amsterdam (VU), and associate partner the University of Groningen (UG), and the semiconductor equipment manufacturer ASML. ARCNL is located at the Amsterdam Science Park, The Netherlands, and has a size of approximately 100 scientists and support staff. See also www.arcnl.nl.

The research activities of the EUV Plasma Processes group aim at the atomic- and molecular-level understanding of the fundamental dynamics in the operation of contemporary and future plasma-based sources of extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) light for nanolithography.

Working conditions
The position is intended as full-time (40 hours / week, 12 months / year) appointment in the service of the Netherlands Foundation of Scientific Research Institutes (NWO-I) for the duration of up to 3 years, with a salary in scale 10 (CAO-OI) and a range of employment benefits. ARCNL assists any new foreign postdoc with housing and visa applications and compensates their transport costs and furnishing expenses.

More information?
For further information about the position, please contact:

Dr. Oscar Versolato
Group leader EUV Plasma Processes
E-mail: versolato@arcnl.nl
Phone: +31 (0)20-851 7100

Please send your:

• Resume
• Motivation letter on why you want to join the group (max. 1 page).

Application
You can respond to this vacancy online via the button below.

Online screening may be part of the selection.

Diversity code
ARCNL is highly committed to an inclusive and diverse work environment: we want to develop talent and creativity by bringing together people from different backgrounds and cultures. We recruit and select on the basis of competencies and talents. We strongly encourage anyone with the right qualifications to apply for the vacancy, regardless of age, gender, origin, sexual orientation or physical ability.

Commercial activities in response to this ad are not appreciated.

PhD position: Applying high efficiency Si PV principles to halide perovskites

Work Activities
As the perovskite layer quality increases, the surfaces and interfaces begin to dominate the remaining efficiency loss. The Si PV industry has developed standardized tools and protocols for rapidly screening new passivation and contact materials and quantifying their quality. There is so far no comparable standardization in halide perovskite PV which hampers further efficiency improvements. Furthermore, doping and impurity gettering in Si are highly controlled using drive-in from external surface layers (e.g. borosilicate or phosphosilicate glass) followed by RTA or furnace annealing, while there is no comparable procedure for controlling doping density or gettering defects in halide perovskite PV. Even measuring doping density (or free carrier concentration) is difficult in halide perovskites, while this is a standard rapid measurement in crystalline Si PV and a critical parameter to optimize for peak performance.

The goal of this project is translate concepts developed in high-efficiency Si PV R&D to halide perovskites. There are both fundamental and more applied aspects to the project. The fundamental Research questions are:

Can we develop a comparable suite of standard characterization techniques for halide perovskites as exist in high-efficiency Si PV? These include for example measuring surface/interface recombination velocity, bulk vs. surface lifetime, J0, implied Voc, doping density/carrier concentration.

Can we develop strategies to reliably dope halide perovskites, especially selectively at the contacts? These could include more traditional doping but also remote doping (e.g. in analogy to doped poly-Si tunnel contacts or doped a-Si heterojunction contacts).

Research goals:

1. Develop fast screening method for passivating contacts analogous to the Sinton tester used in Si PV research and development. Use this to find improved carrier selective contacts and passivation layers.
2. Develop surface/interfacial layers to controllably dope/passivate halide perovskites selectively at the contact or apply remote doping analogous to poly-Si passivated contacts.
3. Implement optical annealing with pulsed lasers to provide highly controllable interfacial processing (annealing, doping, passivation, recrystallization) with simultaneous tracking and feedback via PL and absorption signal, taking advantage of developments in machine learning.

Embedding

The project is part of a large national initiative, SolarLab, aimed at coordinating all academic solar research in the Netherlands and supporting the Dutch solar photovoltaic industry. For more information, visit solarlab-nl.org.

You will join 40 other PhD students from across the Netherlands to tackle fundamental research challenges that underpin industrial activities in solar. This team of PhD students will participate in workshops together and closely collaborate with industrial and applied research partners to ensure that research outcomes are swiftly implemented in the solar PV industry.

Qualifications
We invite applications from highly motivated candidates with a strong background in physics, chemistry, materials science, or engineering, and a keen interest in solar cells. We especially encourage individuals from underrepresented groups to apply. Prospective PhD candidates must hold an MSc degree in a natural science or engineering discipline or equivalent qualification.

Work environment
The Nanoscale Solar Cells Group synthesizes advanced metal and semiconducting nanostructures, characterizes their material properties and integrates them into novel device structures with the aim of improving our fundamental understanding of light absorption, charge separation, recombination and transport at the nanometer scale.

We have 2 main focus areas: improving halide perovskite solar cells and using light to drive and monitor chemical reactions. We value diversity in every sense: research background, ethnicity, gender, nationality, orientation, age and beliefs and see developing talent from underrepresented groups as an essential part of or mission.

We offer a highly collaborative and supportive environment, fostering strong connections both within the group and with our national and international partners. PhD students benefit from a variety of courses designed to enhance their research skills.

AMOLF is a part of NWO-I and initiates and performs leading fundamental research on the physics of complex forms of matter, and to create new functional materials, in partnership with academia and industry. The institute is located at Amsterdam Science Park and currently employs about 140 researchers and 80 support employees. www.amolf.nl

Working conditions

• The working atmosphere at the institute is largely determined by young, enthusiastic, mostly foreign employees. Communication is informal and runs through short lines of communication.
• The position is intended as full-time (40 hours / week, 12 months / year) appointment in the service of the Netherlands Foundation of Scientific Research Institutes (NWO-I) for the duration of four years
• The starting salary is 2.781 Euro’s gross per month and a range of employment benefits.
• After successful completion of the PhD research a PhD degree will be granted at the University of Amsterdam.
• Several courses are offered, specially developed for PhD-students.
• AMOLF assists any new foreign PhD-student with housing and visa applications and compensates their transport costs and furnishing expenses.

More information?
For further information about the position, please contact Erik Garnett: e.garnett@amolf.nl

Application
You can respond to this vacancy online via the button below.

Online screening may be part of the selection.

Diversity code
AMOLF is highly committed to an inclusive and diverse work environment: we want to develop talent and creativity by bringing together people from different backgrounds and cultures. We recruit and select on the basis of competencies and talents. We strongly encourage anyone with the right qualifications to apply for the vacancy, regardless of age, gender, origin, sexual orientation or physical ability.

AMOLF has won the NNV Diversity Award 2022, which is awarded every two years by the Netherlands Physical Society for demonstrating the most successful implementation of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI).

Commercial activities in response to this ad are not appreciated.