The Pablo de Olavide University in Seville offers positions for researchers willing to implement a 2-3 years project based in Spain within the framework of the Horizon Europe Marie Skłodowska Curie postdoctoral fellowships programme (MSCA-PF-2021). All top candidates having the approval of a supervisor at UPO will have the possibility of receiving specialized training in writing a successful proposal for the next MSCA-PF call. You can apply if at the time of the call deadline for the submission of MSCA-PF proposals (September, 2021): 1) you are in the possession of a PhD and you have not obtained your PhD more than 8 years ago; 2) you comply with the mobility rule of the MSCA; 3) you choose the Pablo de Olavide University as your Host Institution. We will be happy to support highly qualified candidates who are interested in any area of our research and are eligible for the MSCA funding. Please contact us by email to get all the details about available scientific supervisors and the procedure to benefit from the training on proposal writing

Brief description of the Centre / Research Group:

In the group of nanostrutured solar cells of the University Pablo de Olavide in Seville (Spain), we like to experiment with solar cells. We always treat them with care and delicacy, as we always use a small perturbation to analyze their response. This small perturbation can be an optical blink, of different colours, or electrical, at either at a pleasant room temperature or at freezing cold conditions, in either total darkness or under extreme light soaking. Normally, all cells behave well, although perovskite ones do not appear to stand well our treatments. In any case, they always provide us with tasty information, in the form of resistances and capacitances, or kinetic constants, of different sorts. In addition, our doctors like to run simulations and devise models of reference, to better understand their complex behaviour. We do not know if we do it well or badly, but we always do it with frequency and intensity.

Project description - Max. 1800 characters :

The applicant will join project ADLIGHT, subproject of the coordinated project AdFUNC , a multidisciplinary project whose main target is the progress on two main topics in state-of-the-art of Materials Science: development of multiresponsive sensors and light-driven energy systems. AdLIGHT is to be carried out by two research teams at the University Pablo de Olavide (Sevilla). The key goal of this subproject is to develop, characterize and model advanced devices for multiresponsive sensoring (MadeG team) and solar energy (Nanosolar team), both based on single and multi-junction nanostructured materials and architectures locally manufactured and by the AdTRONICS subproject at the ICMSE institute (Sevilla). Specifically, the two research teams will work on recent state-of-the-art concepts for (1) solar cells based on nanostructured materials, in particular dye sensitized solar cells (DSC) and perovskite solar cells (PSC), (2) novel nanostructured architectures for water splitting and (3) on Metal Organic Frameworks (MOFs) with multiresponsive features towards light and hazardous chemicals. The Nanosolar Team will focus on DSC with photochromic dyes at conditions of low illumination (indoor environments), PSC based on mesoporous triple-stack (TiO2/ZrO2/meso-C) arquitectures and nanostructured photoanodes for oxygen evolution (CuWO4/BiVO4 heterostructures). The MadeG team will work on the production and characterization of MOF networks infiltrated into porous metal-oxide template substrates, as a means of improving mechanical and chemical stability, leading to robust long-lasting sensing devices. The subproject has a strong modeling contribution, both at the characterization of the studied materials (metal oxides and MOFs), using interatomic potentials-based calculations and Density Functional Theory electronic structure calculations, and the numerical simulation of the final devices using drift-diffusion models.

Applications: Documents to be submitted by applicants:

• CV and reference letters