We are seeking for a curious and motivated PhD student to join our bionanophotonics team and work at the interface between nanophotonics and digital holography to advance the interrogation of chiral systems down to the nanometer scale.
Project background
Chirality describes whether an object is non-superimposable with its mirror image. Despite being a purely geometric property, chirality plays a crucial role in all living systems as most biomolecules are chiral and their interactions with other chiral objects are fundamental to many key biological processes. Chiral molecules exist in two forms, a left-handed one and a right-handed one, known as enantiomers. Their handedness greatly influences molecular interactions, sometimes making the difference between a medical drug and a toxic substance. Therefore, methods for detecting, quantifying and separating enantiomers are critical to many fields, including biochemistry and pharmaceutics. However, standard methods are often not compatible with heterogeneous and spatially varying chiral samples.
Job description
This project aims to develop novel methods for studying chirality across different length scales and spectral ranges to extract key structural information that goes beyond enantiomer discrimination. You will work on both developing nanophotonic systems that enhance light chiral matter interactions and novel imaging systems that, when combined, unlock new understanding on chirality.
Profile
The successful candidate shares our passion for cutting edge research, brings in their motivation and creativity, can clearly communicate, enjoys working closely and respectfully within a team and has basic experience in hands-on lab work and in data analysis. Prior experience in optical imaging, nanofabrication, data processing is highly valued but not mandatory.
We offer
We are an international and interdisciplinary research group at the ETH Zürich that has made pioneering contributions to nanophotonics and its application to the detection of optical chirality. During your PhD, you will get exposed to a multitude of technologies including nanofabrication, optics, spectroscopy, data analysis, and numerical simulations.
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