The Paul Scherrer Institute is a centre for multi-disciplinary research and
one of the world’s leading user laboratories. With its 1300 employees it
belongs as an autonomous institution to the Swiss ETH domain and
concentrates its activities on solid-state research and materials sciences,
elementary particle physics, energy and environmental research as well as
biology and medicine.

The General Energy Research Department promotes advanced technologies for
the utilization of renewable energy sources, low-loss energy storage,
efficient conversion, and low emission energy use. To achieve this goal the
PSI operates an interdisciplinary research program covering the range from
large scale facilities via applicable new fuel cell designs to the
fundamental understanding of quantum behaviour of molecules.

During the last years a tremendous progress has been made in understanding
combustion processes on the basis of chemical reactions, kinetics and
thermodynamics. Still many highly important processes and elementary
reactions remain poorly understood. In this work, spectroscopic experiments
in molecular beams will be performed which yield fundamental information on
elementary reactions relevant to combustion involving stable and transient
molecules. Additionally, the measurements will provide an important means to
validate and improve ab initio and more empirical calculations of molecules.
Such data is essential for the understanding of chemical reaction mechanisms
in general and for the development of accurate combustion models in particular.

For the Molecular Dynamics Group we are looking for a

PhD student

non-linear optical spectroscopy of polyatomic molecules


Your tasks

    * Generation of relevant stable and transient molecules in a molecular beam
    * Investigations of the molecules by applying non-linear spectroscopic
methods, like Degenerate and Two-Color Resonant Four-Wave Mixing as well as
other non-linear and linear spectroscopic tools (cavity ring-down,
laser-induced fluorescence, laser-induced grating spectroscopy)
    * Spectroscopic characterization of vibrationally and rotationally
excited polyatomic molecules on the ground-state potential energy surface
    * Measurements of transient species by using the VUV beamline of the
Swiss Light Source (SLS)


Your profile

    * Diploma or Master in physical chemistry or physics
    * Ambitious and experimentally skilled
    * Strong interest in fundamental questions of molecular reactions and
dynamics
    * Some knowledge on topics like non-linear optics, non-linear and
molecular spectroscopy, quantum chemistry or related fields would be
advantageous
    * Proficiency in spoken and written English
    * You like to work as a motivated team player in an interdisciplinary
research field

The experimental research will be carried out at PSI and the PhD degree will
be received from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ).


For further information please get in touch with:
Dr Peter Radi, Phone +41 (0)56 310 41 27, [log in to unmask]
http://rag.web.psi.ch/ns

Please submit your application to:
Paul Scherrer Institut, Human Resources, ref. code 5302, Miriam Zehnder,
5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland, [log in to unmask]

To join or leave the molecular-dynamics-news email list, go to:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/molecular-dynamics-news.html