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A PhD scholarship in engineering is offered for research into thermoelectric materials for flexible energy harvester. The successful candidate will be funded from prestigious Marsden scholarship (https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/) and enrolled at the University of Auckland. The university is located in Auckland, New Zealand (https://www.aucklandnz.com/), which is the largest city and offers a mild year round climate. The scholarship provides a generous non-taxed living allowance of NZ$35,000 per annum plus the PhD tuition fee for three years.

The research programme includes material’s strain engineering by ion beam techniques and interface engineering for mechanical flexibility. The materials properties will be studied by techniques that include XRD, SEM, TEM, XPS, and Rutherford backscattering. The electronic transport and thermopower properties will be studied using New Zealand’s only physical properties measurement system (PPMS). Mechanical testing will be done using tensile testing machine and MTS system.

The successful candidate will be located at GNS Science (a New Zealand Crown Research Institute) and University of Auckland and supervised by Dr. Peter Murmu (GNS Science) and Dr. Lihua Tang (University of Auckland). There will be interaction with our national and international collaborators as well as the opportunity to attend international conferences.

Applicants should have a physics, engineering, or materials science degree equivalent to the 4-year BSc (Honours) degree in New Zealand, with 1st or upper 2nd class Honours, or an MSc or postgraduate Diploma. We are seeking a highly motivated person with an excellent academic record and a good understanding of solid state physics and basic knowledge on device engineering. Candidates should satisfy the requirements for admission as a PhD candidate at University of Auckland.