Job Type:
Full-time
Job Description:
ICFO offers PhD-fellowship positions in Industrial Track to well-qualified graduate students, who wish to obtain a doctoral degree in cutting-edge research fields of ICFO.
The positions are offered in the scope of the FLIGHT Program, a MCSA-COFUND doctoral program explicitly focused on intersectoral research training in collaboration with Industrial Partners.
Our PhD Fellowship Program welcomes applications from individuals with a degree in a field of mathematics, science or engineering related to the ICFO research activities.
Our PhD-program brings together top-level training and teaching for young scientists, benefiting from the extensive course offerings of local universities and focused instruction by ICFO professors, in a stimulating, international and interdisciplinary environment. PhD-students have the opportunity to take advantage of our network of excellence, consisting in partners of national and international research institutes and universities, as well as industrial partners in the field.
Selected PhD candidates will join the Industrial PhD Track, developing projects in close collaboration with industrial partners. Fellows will undertake secondments of 6–18 months at the partner organizations, ensuring full immersion in both academic and industrial settings throughout their fellowship.
Research Projects Available
The following projects are open for this call:
IT008: How do crops avoid photodamage under the sun?
IT009: FPGA-Based Hardware Acceleration for Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) and Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) Emulation
IT010: Development of Applications and Devices Based on Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs)
FLIGHT has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101081441.
Responsibilities:
IT008: How do crops avoid photodamage under the sun?
Objective: The project aims to investigate how crop species and varieties balance the use of sunlight for growth while minimizing the risk of photodamage. The research will involve applying state-of-the-art biochemical and spectroscopic techniques to study photoprotection mechanisms across diverse crop species and varieties. The objective is to gain molecular-level insights into the strategies employed by crops to ensure efficient photoprotection and maintain biodiversity.
IT009: FPGA-Based Hardware Acceleration for Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) and Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) Emulation
Objective: Develop FPGA-based PQC codes to strengthen the classical communication channels of LuxQuanta’s QKD transceivers portfolio. This includes also developing a FPGA-based emulation of the optical transmission layers used for QKD, a versatile toolchain for optical simulation and verification.
IT010: Development of Applications and Devices Based on Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs)
– Objective: Collaborate on the design, fabrication, and characterization of applications and devices that incorporate photonic integrated circuits (PICs), leveraging ICFO’s burgeoning infrastructure in this area and ZEISS’ industry-leading expertise in this and related fields. The specific technical focus of the project will be tuned to the candidate’s experience, but will involve strong elements of optical design and will result in the development of devices or components that are of common interest to both Zeiss and ICFO. We aim to focus on sensing applications, developing advanced sensors that utilize PIC technology to improve detection capabilities in areas such as environmental monitoring and healthcare diagnostics.
Requirements:
To be eligible for an ICFO PhD position, candidates must:
– Have an internationally-recognized Master-equivalent degree. The degree must be completed by the start of your prospective PhD at ICFO, at the latest, and must be in a field of mathematics, science, engineering or medical sciences related to the ICFO research activities. Degrees issued within the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) must have an equivalent to 300 ECTS, out of which a minimum of 60 ECTS must have been obtained in postgraduate studies. Please, if in doubt regarding your academic eligibility, contact us at jobs@icfo.eu
– Have an excellent academic record, previous research experience and a strong commitment to scientific research.
– Have a high working knowledge of English.
– Candidates who have already been awarded a PhD are not eligible to apply.
– Candidates who have been already admitted into the ICFO doctoral program may apply if they have not previously applied to any equivalent ICFO PhD Fellowships call (this includes, for example, the Spring and Fall PhD fellowship calls and previous FLIGHT calls).
– Candidates who have not been admitted into the ICFO doctoral program and have previously applied to any previous call for equivalent ICFO PhD fellowships (this includes, for example, the Spring and Fall PhD fellowship calls and previous FLIGHT calls), may only apply again if they can demonstrate a substantial change in circumstances in their application. For example, candidates who applied while completing their Master program, who have subsequently completed their degree and corresponding master’s thesis research project with significant output (grades, research results) that was not included in their previous application may apply again. Candidates should also explicitly describe any updates to their candidacy in their application documentation.
Salary Range:
26.200€