arrowarrowJ. C. Sit – Research – Recruitment

Research opportunities in the Engineered Nanomaterials Laboratory

The Sit research group is powered by dedicated, hard-working researchers keen on learning.  We are an experimental-based research group.  We seek high-calibre, qualified inidividuals for:

Applicants should have an electrical en­gi­neer­ing, en­gi­neer­ing phys­ics, or other, re­la­ted sci­ence/en­gi­neer­ing background.  Prior re­search or relevant work experience, particularly experimental work in microfabrication and nanotechnology, is an asset.  Students and post-docs who are able to secure (or are elegible to secure) funding through scholarships or fellowships will be given top consideration.  While having high grades helps, it is far from being the sole determinant of success at research — things like passion, organisation, and industriousness are no less important.

Top-tier grad­uate stu­dents and applic­ants can win major schol­ar­ships from a range of agen­cies.  Examples include NSERC (Post Graduate Schol­ar­ship/Canada Grad­uate Schol­ar­ship) and Alberta Innovates — Tech­nol­ogy Fu­tures (iCORE, Ingenuity Scholarships).  More infor­ma­tion about ap­plying to grad­uate studies in our depart­ment can be found on the ECE website.

Under­grad­uate stu­dents seek­ing sum­mer/co-op place­ments in a re­search lab­or­a­tory environ­ment are invited to apply for pro­ject-oriented, research-related jobs.  Fund­ing will be sought through the NSERC Under­grad­uate Stu­dent Research Award (USRA) pro­gram.  The depart­mental USRA dead­line for sum­mer term (May-August) awards is early to mid-January each year.  Stu­dents are en­cour­aged to apply early!

Graduate student positions available

M.Sc./Ph.D. graduate studentship (starting January 1 or May 1, 2018) — Flexible electronics and nanofabrication

We are exploring new materials and fab­ri­cation tech­niques for flexible and stretch­able elec­tronics.  Ultimately, the end goals of this research are new elec­tronic devices, such as solar cells that can be integrated in clothing or bio­med­i­cal sensor arrays for human diagnostics.  The group’s projects involve under­stand­ing the prop­er­ties of functional materials (conductors, semiconductors, etc.) during mech­anical de­form­ation, then re­direct­ing this knowledge to create flex­ible devices.

We are currently recruiting a graduate student for collaborative sub-project within this broader program.  This student will be jointly supervised by Dr. Ken Harris (National Research Council and Mechanical Engeering, University of Alberta) and Dr. Jeremy Sit (Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Alberta).  This particular project is aimed at the fabrication of mechanically-responsive optically-active nanostructures using the glancing angle deposition (GLAD) technique.

Some carefully designed columnar GLAD nanostructures (such as helices or scalloped posts; see image for an example) have interesting optical properties that are directly derived from the columnar nanostructure. We hope to fabricate these structures on plastic substrates, and we expect the op­tical properties (e.g., colour) of these materials to change with mech­anical strain, making them use­ful as visual strain indicators.  The grad­uate stu­dent will develop the process to deposit the nano-films, then perform opto-mechanical characterisation experiments to understand their strain response.

Graduate studentships (starting September 1, 2018) — Various topics

Prof. Sit seeks qualified candidates for M.Sc. or Ph.D. student­ships on various projects.  Contact me for information.

Other positions — I’m always looking for good people; please contact me if you’re interested!