Post doctoral positions:

Simulations of Gold Nano-Particles supported on the h-BN-nanomesh

In 2003 M. Corso et al. from Osterwalder's group at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, published in Science [M. Corso et al., Science 303, 217 (2004)] the discovery of a new inorganic nanostructured two dimensional material with a periodicity of 3.2 nm. It has "pores" of about 2 nm and was formed by thermal decomposition of Borazine on a Rh(111) surface. Based on these experiments they explained the structure with two, partially incomplete, h-BN layers.
       3D plot of an STM image


Hovever, DFT simulations carried out in our group (for unit cells containing more than 1100 atoms !!) unraveled the real atomic structure. The nanomesh consists of a highly corrugated h-BN monolayer on a TM(111) surface (Robert Laskowski, Peter Blaha, Thomas Gallauner, and Karlheinz Schwarz, Physical Review Letters 98, 106802 (2007)). The corrugated h-BN monolayer forms "pores" which can trap atoms and molecules and may serve as template to construct well-ordered nanostructured materials (Dil et al., Science 319, 1824 (2008)).

       3D plot of an STM image
A post-doc position is available within a 3-year ERA-Chemistry project in which we shall study theoretically the catalytic activity of small Au-nanoparticles supported on the h-BN nanomesh. This project is a collaboration between our group (DFT simulations) and a group at the Univ.Giessen (Germany) led by H. Over, who will study this system experimentally.
The DFT simulations will be based on our WIEN2k code . Experience with DFT simulations, large scale computing, theoretical solid state physics, catalysis, ... is advantageous.

The position is available starting with January 2010. The appointment is for one year with the possibility of an extension up to three years. The salary is about 3.100 Euro, 14 times/year (brutto, i.e. before taxes). Our research group has access to good computational facilities (brandnew 4000-cores Intel-Nehalem cluster) and a friendly atmosphere. Please send your application, CV, list of publications and names of 3 references by email to

Peter Blaha
Inst. Materials Chemistry
TU Vienna
Getreidemarkt 9
A-1060 Vienna, Austria
(pblaha@theochem.tuwien.ac.at)

PhD positions:

Open PhD positions are available for EU citizens with the general topic "Theoretical simulations of solids".

Depending on your interest we have topics focussing on

More specific topics are: If interested, please contact Prof. Peter Blaha (pblaha@theochem.tuwien.ac.at).