Professor Daniel Rodríguez Rubiales, from the Department of Atomic, Molecular and Nuclear Physics at the University of Granada, welcomes postdoctoral candidates interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF) in 2024 at this University. Please note that applicants must comply with the Mobility Rule (for more information about the 2024 call, please consult this link.

Brief description of the institution:

The University of Granada (UGR), founded in 1531, is one of the largest and most important universities in Spain. With over 56,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and more than 6,000 members of staff, the UGR offers over 90 undergraduate degrees, 164 master’s degrees (8 of which are international double degrees) and 28 doctoral programmes via its 124 departments and nearly 50 centers. Accordingly, the UGR offers one of the most extensive and diverse ranges of higher education programmes in Spain.

The UGR has been awarded with the "Human Resources Excellence in Research (HRS4R)", which reflects the the institution’s commitment to continuously improve its human resource policies in line with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The UGR is also internationally renowned for its excellence in diverse research fields and ranked among the top Spanish universities in a variety of ranking criteria, such as national R&D projects, fellowships awarded, publications, and international funding.

The UGR is one of the few Spanish Universities listed in the Shanghai Top 500 ranking - Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The 2023 edition of the ARWU places the UGR in 201-300th position in the world and as the 1-2 highest ranked University in Spain (http://sl.ugr.es/0dwJ), reaffirming its position as an institution at the forefront of national and international research. From the perspective of specialist areas in the ARWU rankings (http://sl.ugr.es/0bSp), the UGR is outstanding in Food Science & Technology (ranked in the 48th position in the world), Hospitality & Tourism Management (ranked between 51th-75th position), and in the areas of Mathematics and Library & Information Science, both of them ranked between 76th-100th position. A little lower in the ranking, the UGR also stands out in the areas of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering and Nursing, in which the UGR is positioned at the rank in the 101-150th position. Finally, Dentistry & Oral Sciences is positioned between 151-200th position.

Additionally, the UGR counts with 9 researchers at the top of the Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) list, most of them related to the Computer Science scientific area. It is also well recognised for its web presence (http://sl.ugr.es/0a6i), being positioned at 76th place in the top 200 Universities in Europe.

Internationally, the University of Granada is firmly committed to its participation in the calls of the Framework Programme of the European Union. For the duration of the last Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, the UGR obtained a total of 121 projects with a total funding of around €29,4 million. For the current Framework Programme, Horizon Europe, the UGR has obtained 74 projects, so far, with a total funding of almost €20 million.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group:

The Ion traps and Lasers Laboratory is one of the singular laboratories in advanced technologies at the University of Granada since 2017, and the only laboratory of this nature in Spain. We perform experiments with individual ions or two-ion crystals in a linear Paul trap and in a 7-Tesla Penning trap, recently upgraded with a cryogen-free superconducting magnet. There are 12 tunable diode lasers for Doppler cooling and two lasers (one diode and one Ti:Sa) coupled to high finest cavities for ground state cooling. We apply Doppler laser cooling to reach temperatures of about 1 mK and sideband cooling to reach the ground state in the potential well of the trap. The latter allows carrying out experiments of quantum nature like for example precision motional frequency spectroscopy for Quantum Mass Spectrometry where our group is pioneer. The group has also developed in collaboration with the University of Mainz, and utilized for the first time with trapped ions, quartz resonators, to detect signals from trapped ions from the current they induced on the trap electrodes, resulting in novel features compared with other resonators. These are the two research lines in the laboratory with also collaborates with theoretical Spanish groups and European experimental groups. All the experimental work has been mainly carried out under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Rodríguez, head of the laboratory and professor in the following courses in two master programs: Lasers Physica and Applications, Implementations in quantum technologies, Laboratory of quantum technologies and Quantum sensing.

Project description:

The applicant can be involved in one or several of the topics listed and briefly discussed in the following:

a.   Sympathetic cooling of a single heavy ion through a single laser-cooled 40Ca+ ion in a Penning trap. Applications in Chemistry and mass identification.This research is focused on finding experimental schemes to speed up the Doppler and sideband cooling of a heavy ion by collisions with a 40Ca+ ion in a Penning trap. The heavy ion is created by an external ion source and injected in the Penning trap where a single laser-cooled ion is stored.

b.   Motional quantum metrology on a two-ion hybrid crystal in a Penning trap.This is our main line of research, and we aim at measuring all (six) motional modes of a hybrid two-ion crystal in a Penning trap using quantum protocols for a precise cyclotron frequency determination. The experiments will take place in a Paul and in a Penning trap.

c.   Combination of electronic detection using quartz resonators and laser cooling to increase detection sensitivity.Quartz crystals have been developed and utilized in our group for electronic resonant detection of trapped ions in a Penning trap. We aim at extending the use of them using laser cooled ions.

d.   Cryogenic ion trapping and trap microfabrication.Besides the setups available for experiments (points a to c), the group is developing a new cryogenic Penning trap system and aims at restarting the activity on microfabrication stopped in 2022.

These topics are interconnected and with prospects for the formation of the candidate on state-of-the-art technologies and in the framework of quantum technologies with applications in quantum metrology, nuclear Physics and Chemistry. Specific atomic or molecular ions for the different topics will be discussed with potential candidates.

Research Area:

☒ Physics (PHY)

For a correct evaluation of your candidature, please send the documents below to Professor Daniel Rodríguez Rubiales (danielrodriguez@ugr.es): 

• CV
• Letter of recommendation (optional)