Postdoctoral position available at INAC, CEA/Grenoble, Grenoble, France
Silicon Nanowire-conductive polymer composites for novel batteries/supercapacitors
Duration : 18 months (+ possible 18 month extension)
CEA is the leading public research institution in energy research in France. With a 16,000 employee task
force, CEA conducts its research activities from the most fundamental level to industrial transfer around
its 4 main expertise domains: low carbon energies, defense and security, and health and communication
technologies. The present project takes place in the fundamental research division of CEA in the
research institute INAC at Grenoble. INAC is a joint CEA-university institute of 500 researchers with
strong expertise in nanosciences, namely photonics, new technologies for energy, nanoelectronics,
biosensors, polymer chemistry.
In the last two decades, batteries have spread into everyone’s pocket within electronic devices
(watches, then phones, then cameras…). As electronics evolve into more and more integrated devices
such as structure integrity monitoring in planes, trains or bridges for instance, new energy storage has to
be designed according to new requirements: long cycle life, low/high temperature performance, and
compatibility with on chip integration. Supercapacitors, also known as ultracapacitors, show better
performances in this aim than electrochemical batteries. However, the energy density of
supercapacitors still has to be improved. Based on our recent success in silicon nanowire (SiNW)
supercapacitors, we now aim to improve the energy storage by optimizing the electrode-electrolyte
interface.
The project is funded by a new European grant involving 4 academic partners and 2 chemical
companies. Our part is devoted to the synthesis of silicon nanowires (SiNW) and mainly the
functionalization thereof with tuned electroactive conductive polymers (ECP) for supercapacitors.
Characterization will be performed in collaboration with academic partners at CIN2 in Barcelona and
Fraunhofer Institute at Freiburg. Our team will work in close collaboration with a French industrial
company for the implementation and testing of our materials in supercapacitors.
Applicants should hold a PhD in electro-chemistry/surface chemistry and feel strongly appealed towards
multidisciplinary research and industrial collaboration. Experience in semiconductor
physics/nanosciences will be considered favorably.
Contact : Dr Pascale Chenevier, pascale.chenevier@cea.fr