Dept / School / Faculty:
Engineering & The Environment | University of Southampton
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Project Title:
EngSci-MATS-138 Nanoscale properties of 2D heterostructures
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Research Group:
Engineering Materials
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Funding Availability (UK/EU students only!):
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Application Deadline: closing 15 June 2015
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2D nanostructures are extremely attractive materials with unique mechanical, electrical and optical properties. Graphene is the most known member of this class, but structurally more complicated transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), such as MoS2, offer exciting possibilities quite beyond graphene range. TMDs are unique in Nature with ability to provide frictionless sliding with minimized dissipated energy.
You will explore frictional properties of selected pure and doped 2D transition metal dichalcogenides by Atomic Force Microscopy and advanced surface characterisation methods, such as XPS, STEM and Raman spectroscopy.

Although the work is experimental in nature, you will be in contact with post-doctoral researchers dealing with theoretical simulations of sliding by ab initio and molecular dynamics. The results of this project will support existing theoretical approaches as either reference or parameter input. The core output of this PhD project will be detail description of nanoscale friction of selected TMD heterostructures.

References:
If you wish to discuss any details of the project informally, please contact T. Polcar, nCATS research group, Email: t.polcar@soton.ac.uk, Tel: +44 (0) 2380 59 8615.
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