PhD position on polymer physics in Paris (FRANCE)

[Frédéric Restagno <restagno@DROPMElps.u-psud.fr>]

Please find enclosed an opened position for a 3-year PhD. This position 
is a Marie-Curie fellowship and the applicant should not be french but 
should be from an european or associated country. This position is 
available and should start immediatly.

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AFM measurements on glass transition in polymer thin films
Contact: Dr. Frédéric Restagno
restagno at lps.u-psud.fr <http://spmlist.di.com/mailman/listinfo/spm>
http://www.lps.u-psud.fr

The glass transition is an ubiquitous phenomenon, both in nature, and in 
practical and technological processes. Understanding the mechanisms 
involved in the glass transition is an important scientific challenge, 
not only from a fundamental point of view regarding the glass transition 
itself, but also because the glass transition plays a key rôle in very 
important issues such as adhesion, preparation of good damping 
materials, toughening of polymeric materials,and reinforcement of filled 
elastomers.

The general objectives of the proposed research project is to perform  
mechanical measurements at small scales by atomic force microscopy 
(AFM)  in highly confined polymer around Tg. The theoretical motivation 
of this work is that studying confined glass-forming systems is a 
promising technique to investigate the existence of a cooperative length 
for glass transition dynamics. More precisely, we will study different 
systems in  which the confinement effects can create huge changes in the 
mechanical  properties of the systems using a specialy designend AFM 
with Shear  Modulation Force Microscopy capability.

   * We want to study the effect of the film thickness to compare
     direct measurements to indirect measurement such as dielectric
     measurements or thermal expansion measurements as a function ofthe
     film-substrate interactions, as a function of the explored degree
     of freedom...

   * We want to study the effect of this confinement on the aging
     properties of thin polymer films.


Since confinement effects could explained some remarkables properties of
nanostrucured materials, this will lead to a study of:

   * the mechanical properties of the polymer at the nanoscale closed
     to the solid particles as a function of the distance to the
     particle in filled elastomers,
   * mechanical properties at the nanoscale in yielding polymers.


The phD student will be inserted in the so-called "Pôle Polymer", which 
is a group including theoreticians and experimentalists, working 
together on the microscopic aspects of the glass transition. This 
student should have an excellent background in general physics and some 
knowledges in polymer or soft condensed matter.