Fellowships and Ph.D. position available: Analysis and modeling of the mechanical behavior of 3D nanoparticles superstructures

Colloidal nanocrystals (NCs) form a family of highly advanced building blocks suitable for large scale assembly of novel high-complexity 1D-to-3D superstructures. Their properties and inter-particle interactions, nowadays, can be highly controlled by tailoring their size, shape, composition and surface functionalization.

In this context particularly innovative appears the possibility of studying and modeling the mechanical behavior of single branched NCs structures, and analyzing how this behavior reflects on the mechanical behavior of more complex 3D assembled superstructures, such as single macrostructures (micrometric interlaced superstructures) and thin/thick films (from randomly to close-packed ordered).

The aim of this research project is to analyze and model the mechanical behavior of novel colloidal branched NCs (e.g. tetrapods, octapods, urchins etc.) and 3D superstructures obtained from their assembly for the production of electro-optical devices (films, macroaggregates, nanocrystal solids).

The candidate will have a hand at different techniques for the characterization of the mentioned materials (e.g. AFM, nanoindentation) and will be involved in applying numerical techniques (e.g. Finite Element Analysis) to model the experimental results.

For further details concerning the research project, please contact: alberto.barone@iit.it, luca.ceseracciu@iit.it