Research assistantship position available for a graduate student with interest in Thermoelectrics, Materials Science and Thermal Engineering for extreme environments (e.g. Hypersonics). Specifically, the project addresses the challenge of developing thermoelectric sensors resilience in harsh temperature and pressure environments. Currently, commercial heatflux sensors are only useful up to ~300degC (the commercial sensor for hypersonic tunnels has a limit of 50C). There is a need for sensors that are robust and reliable for temperature 700C and higher, for large scale energy generation, for space science, etc. The student will work under the guidance of Profs. Oded Rabin (Mat.Sci.Eng.) and Sunderland (Fire Protection Eng.) towards a Ph.D. or M.Sc. degree, with potential collaborations with the Aerospace Engineering Dept or the Leibniz Institute for Solid State Research in Germany. The student will gain research experience in thermoelectric/semiconductor materials processing and characterization, microelectronics, measurement science, solid state physics and numerical modeling. The project started in 2021, funded by the Dept of Energy, and involves also a graduate student from Aerospace Engineering who recently received multiple awards for his work on this project.
Please contact Prof. Rabin (oded@umd.edu) ASAP for further details on the position.