Materials Postdoctoral Fellow (Computational Thermoelectrics Design): Realizing a sustainable energy future is one of the most important problems facing our society. Thermoelectric devices convert waste heat to electricity and have several applications: improving transportation efficiency, recovering heat from power plants, and enabling solar thermal power generation.
While thermoelectrics are already employed in small and mission-critical applications like space exploration, large-scale application that impacts our energy future has been limited by the performance and cost of known thermoelectric materials like PbTe and Bi2Te3.
Tasks / Specific Responsibilities:
- This project will apply new and powerful techniques, beyond the domain of what has been attempted before, to the search for completely new thermoelectric materials. This approach will merge computational modeling based on density functional theory (DFT) and related techniques, high-throughput calculations at supercomputing centers, data mining and statistical analysis, and collaboration with an experimental partner.
- Use supercomputers to virtually screen tens of thousands of materials as promising thermoelectric materials.
- Use the resulting data set to uncover new physical principles and theories for thermoelectric design that could not be otherwise found.
- Collaborate with an experimental partner to realize these compounds in the lab. All this will occur as part of a small and tightly-knit research group that will work together towards making large-scale thermoelectrics a reality.
Required Qualifications / Specifications:
- Ph.D. in related field knowledge of thermoelectric materials and/or solid state physics.
- Experience with solid state DFT methods (calculation of band structures, treatment of correlated electrons, defect calculations, phonon calculations).
- High aptitude and desire for programming and building software infrastructure; object-oriented programming, databases (MongoDB preferred), software engineering practice (version control, unit testing, continuous integration). Preferred language of experience is Python.
- Experience with networking, Unix, and running/scaling at supercomputing centers.
- Prior ability or desire to learn data mining and data analysis.
- Expert in use and application of the Materials Project (www.materialsproject.org) database, a resource built in part by our group for high-throughput calculation and dissemination.
- Excellent communication skills.
- Prior collaboration with an experimental synthesis team is a plus.
Deadline: The posting shall remain open until the position is filled.
Notes: Berkeley Lab understands the postdoctoral experience in a research environment is unique. We are committed to the growth and development of early career researchers in pursuit of becoming next generation scientists and engineers. Read about the at Berkeley Lab.
This is a 1 year term appointment with the possibility of renewal for up to 5 years based upon satisfactory job performance, continuing availability of funds, and ongoing operational needs. Salary for postdoctoral positions depends on years of experience post-degree.
This position requires completion of a background check.
Contact: About Dr. Anubhav Jain:
Dr. Jain specializes in working at the intersection of materials science and computer science for the discovery of new materials. For more information, see his personal page <> or <>
Berkeley Lab addresses the world’s most urgent scientific challenges by advancing sustainable energy, protecting human health, creating new materials, and revealing the origin and fate of the universe. Founded in 1931, Berkeley Lab’s scientific expertise has been recognized with 13 Nobel prizes. The University of California manages Berkeley Lab for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.
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