SKILLS: Candidates must be electrical/electronic engineers with a strong background in one of the following fields: design, characterization and implementation of: complex electrical/electronic circuits and microdevices (e.g. sensors, MEMS, NEMS with or without nanomaterials); signal processing, microcontrollers programming. It is also appreciated knowledge in: nano/microfabrication and testing, organic electronic, printed circuits, piezoelectric polymers/ceramics, smart materials.

RESEARCH AREA: Stretchable electronics for adaptive morphing materials (call n. 271/2013)

SUMMARY
Within the framework of an ERC starting grant (MORPHOSIS), one Postdoctoral scholar position is made available in the Department of Engineering at the University of Rome, RomaTre. The project aims at developing innovative bio-inspired morphing materials.
ERC starting grants are particularly designed to support the creation of excellent new research teams and are rewarded on a strongly competitive basis.

RESEARCH FIELD
Morphing materials have been widely studied in the last several decades because they could provide enhanced performance through reconfiguration of shapes for instance in aeronautical, aerospace and naval structures which are often expected to deploy in conditions beyond their design configurations. Other fields of applications include robotics, smart textiles, acoustic and vibrational absorbers, adaptable metamaterials, self cleaning surfaces, biomedical implants, rollable displays. The objective of this research is to engineer novel multifunctional morphing materials drawing inspiration from biological systems. This will be achieved through the development of novel multi-scale technologies (from nano- to macro) and materials that will allow distributed local/global morphing that can be exploited for structural as well as for eminently flexible applications. The project also includes the development of nano/micro-scaled active and passive devices (MEMS and NEMS) based on graphene, carbon nanotubes and other nanostructured materials.
This research has the potential to pave the way toward the development of new multidisciplinary research fields and could revolutionarize the design and production of future structures and devices in an extremely wide variety of fields.

RESEARCH ENVIRONMENT
The highly interdisciplinary nature of the project requires a close collaboration between team members having various backgrounds. The research is expected to be published in top Scientific International Journals.
The research activity will be deployed in the following state of the art laboratories: (1) Interdepartmental Laboratory of Electronic Microscopy (LIME) at the University of Rome (http://ricerca.uniroma3.it/laboratorio.aspx?id_l=130), for nanocharacterization of materials; (2) Material Science & Technology Laboratory (STM) at the University of Rome (http://www.stm.uniroma3.it/SitePages/Home.aspx) for the mechanical characterization of thin film materials; (3) Institute of Advanced Technologies (ITA) (http://ita-nanotech.com/) for: production of nano/micro-scaled devices/materials/ composites, nanomaterials growth (CNTs, graphene) and testing, (4) Multiprocessor Workstations for parallel advanced calculations and imaging; and (5) MORPHOSIS-lab being set-up within this project. This research environment will allow the design, fabrication, realization, testing and characterization of materials and devices from the nano to the macro-scale.

HOW TO APPLY
For pre-selection, please send your motivation letter+detailed CV + 2-3 names of referees (name, email) to the Principal Investigator of the ERC project: Prof. Giulia Lanzara, email: giulia.lanzara@uniroma3.it
Please note that the application deadline is APRIL 5 and applications must be delivered by POSTAL MAIL at the latest by April 5 (no exceptions can be made). Thus it is highly recommended to contact Prof. Lanzara as soon as possible for preselection and for detailed application instructions.