Call for a Post-Graduate Student — Research Assistant Positions
The Laboratory of Metamaterials of National Research University (NRU) ITMO, St.
Petersburg, Russia in collaboration with King’s College London, is seeking for talented
individuals to work on research projects:
-
Quantum Phenomena in Nanostructured Environment
Nonlinear Nanophotonics/Plasmonics
Complex Systems Engineering
The applicant:
-
M.Sc. degree in Physics/Electrical Engineering (or equivalent), specializing in Optics,
Quantum Mechanics, or Solid State Physics. (Ph.D degree for postdoctoral candidates)
A priority will be given to applicants that have accepted or published works in referred
international journals or conference proceedings
English at a good level
The mandatory requirement for students is entering the graduate school in NRU ITMO. The
documents should be submitted by June / July 2014 electronically via NRU ITMO website
Successful candidates, after several rounds of interviews, will be offered a fully paid research
student/research assistant position at the Laboratory of Metamaterials (employment conditions
will be updated each year, up to 3 years in total). The main research program will be performed
at the Laboratory of Metamaterials.
Part of the activities will take place at King’s College London. Travel expenses will be fully
covered by NRU ITMO. Student researchers are expected to obtain her/his Ph.D degree within 3
years based on the results of the research project. The Program is planned to start in Sep/Oct
2014.
Application Forms
- Short curriculum vita (up to 2 pages)
- List of publications, including published or accepted manuscripts
- Motivation letter (up to 1 page). The letter should address scientific background and future
plans of the candidate.
All the required documentation should be written in English (preferable) or Russian and
submitted (in pdf format) by email to METAvacancies@phoi.ifmo.ru. The email subject should
contain ‘PhD in Nanophotonics’. The submission deadline is May 2014.
The Laboratory of Metamaterials (http://phoi.ifmo.ru/metamaterials) is established under open
grant competition of the Government of the Russian Federation designed to support research
projects implemented by leading scientists at Russian institutions of higher education. The head
of the laboratory is Dr. Pavel Belov and the research advisor of the laboratory is professor of the
Australian National University Dr. Yuri Kivshar.
The group leader, Dr. Pavel Ginzburg (http://pavel.ginzburg.info/), is EPSRC Research Fellow
at King’s College London. His research interests are multidisciplinary and include Optics,
Plasmonics, Quantum Mechanics, Solid State Physics, Quantum Information and Metamaterials.
Dr. Ginzburg has experience and proven ability in mentoring and supervision at different levels.
Project Background
The ability to manipulate and tailor electromagnetic signals facilitates addressing fundamental
and technological challenges as well as to pave the way for variety of new applications.
Electromagnetic theory, being developed over the last 100 years, nowadays is more and more
oriented towards studies of different nano-scale structures. Recent technological advances in
nanofabrication techniques enabled various fundamental and applicative investigations. In
particular, electromagnetic properties of nanostructures have got an enormous attention due to
their possible groundbreaking opto-electronic applications. In this context, nanostructures could
mediate both classical and quantum interactions via their electromagnetic near-fields.
Applications, such as quantum cryptography, classical (optical) and quantum computing,
having strong optical component, could be significantly affected by nano-structuring. For
example, the strength of light matter interaction, photon collection efficiency, and quantum
information encoding, beneficial for these quantum applications, could be significantly improved
by incorporation of nano-scale objects. However, these potentials are yet fully explored. The
reason for this is the lack of rigorous and adequate methods of quantum analysis as well as
certain technological challenges, complicating fabrication and measurements of these types of
nanostructures.
The ultimate goal of this project is to explore, develop and employ new fundamental effects and
methods of controlling light-matter interactions in the vicinity of nanostructures in order to
propose and demonstrate novel quantum sources (e.g. single photon and entangled photon pairs)
and appropriate interconnection elements.