MSCA POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS AT VU FACULTY OF PHYSICS, INSTITUTE OF PHOTONICS AND NANOTECHNOLOGY, ORGANIC OPTOELECTRONICS GROUP (Organic optoelectronics, OLED, TADF, photon upconversion, triplet-triplet annihilation)

Vilnius University (VU) invites motivated researchers with a strong track record to prepare joint applications for 2024 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA PF) call with a deadline on September 11, 2024. MSCA PF are among the flagship, most prestigious research fellowships in Europe, with the objective of supporting researchers’ careers, enhancing their creative and innovative potential, and fostering excellence in research.

• European Postdoctoral Fellowships are open to researchers of any nationality who wish to engage in R&I projects by either coming to Europe from any country in the world or moving within Europe (12-24 months).
• Global Postdoctoral Fellowships are open to European nationals or long-term residents who wish to engage in R&I projects with organisations outside EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries (12-24 months outgoing phase in a non-associated Third Country & 12 months mandatory return phase to a host organisation in Europe).
• Extra funding opportunity! If you apply for the European Postdoctoral Fellowship with the host institution located in a widening country (Lithuania), and in case your proposal is not funded under the MSCA PF call due to a lack of budget, it will be automatically resubmitted to ERA Fellowships call and will have one more opportunity to get funding.

HOST INSTITUTION AND RESEARCH GROUP

VU is one of the oldest higher education institutions in Eastern and Central Europe. It tops the ranking as the number one university in Lithuania and leads the country in education, a broad spectrum of fundamental and applied research, training and retraining programs, and consultancy services and provides research and development services to a wide range of businesses. VU offers dynamic research and training environment and is well integrated into a collaborative network of international universities.

Organic Optoelectronics Group at the Institute of Photonics and Nanotechnology, Faculty of Physics, focuses on the design of novel compounds for application in high-performance blue-emitting TADF-OLEDs or triplet-mediated photon upconversion. The group is also engaged in investigation of compound photophysical properties, device fabrication and performance optimization. The group possesses state-of-the-art facilities housed within an ISO-7 cleanroom environment for device fabrication. The facility includes six nitrogen glovebox system with integrated substrate cleaning, organic film deposition by vacuum evaporation and solution spin-coating techniques, metal electrode deposition, thermal annealing, and device encapsulation. The quality and morphology of the films are examined using an optical-fluorescence microscope, XRD, FE-SEM and AFM. Variety of spectrometers, photon counting systems, integrating spheres, femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopic system etc. are available for characterization of key-properties of compounds and devices.

SUPERVISOR

Dr. Karolis Kazlauskas is a head of Organic Optoelectronics group. He has over 18 years of experience in the field of organic optoelectronics and has a deep knowledge and expertise that covers design and photophysics of organic molecular compounds, determination of structure-property relationship, estimation and control of singlet/triplet exciton diffusion as well as other properties that are of prime importance for device applications. Dr. Kazlauskas has a solid background and scientific competence in the development of efficient fluorescent/phosphorescent/TADF emitters, photon upconverting films, OLEDs, organic solid state lasers and sensors. He is an expert in photon upconversion mediated by triplet-triplet annihilation. His scientific contribution includes 140 peer-reviewed publications cited more than 2300 times (h-index 30), a few patents on electroluminescent devices and novel compounds used for device applications.

POSSIBLE RESEARCH TOPICS

• Improving stability of blue OLEDs based on thermally activated delayed fluorescence phenomenon.
• Efficient triplet-triplet annihilation for visible-to-UV photon upconversion in solid-state.

ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS

• Supported fellows must be in possession of PhD at the call deadline (September 11, 2024).
• Have up to 8 years full-time equivalent experience in research from the date of award of the doctoral degree at the call deadline.
• Fellows must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the beneficiary (for European Postdoctoral Fellowships), or the host organisation for the outgoing phase (for Global Postdoctoral Fellowships) for more than 12 months in the 36 months before the call deadline

Detailed information on the eligibility can be found on p. 91-94 of the MSCA Work Programme 2023-2024.

HOW TO APPLY?

• Contact the supervisor Dr. Karolis Kazlauskas (karolis.kazlauskas@ff.vu.lt) directly to express your interest in making a joint application based on your research interests. Do not forget to provide the following documents (cc to research@cr.vu.lt):
  - curriculum vitae
  - list of publications 
  - proposal summary
• Request a letter from your supervisor endorsing you as a candidate, and send it to the Research Projects Office (research@cr.vu.lt). The candidates who wish to participate in VU MSCA PF Webinar are kindly requested to submit their endorsement letters by May 31, 2024.
• After receiving your supervisor’s endorsement, you can start preparing your MSCA PF project proposal. Please note that in order to prepare and submit your application on time (by September 11, 2024), you can seek support from VU Research Projects Office (research@cr.vu.lt).

For more information follow the link.