Experimental Postdoctoral Position in the Bellan Plasma Group
Caltech
Application
Details
Posted: 22-Oct-24
Location: Pasadena, California
Salary: $70,264
Categories:
Physics: Astrophysics
Physics: Instrumentation and Measurement
Physics: Plasma
Sector:
Academic
Work Function:
Postdoctoral Research
Required Education:
Doctorate
Experimental Postdoctoral Position in the Bellan Plasma Group
Requirements:
Recent Ph.D. degree in experimental plasma physics or closely related field
Experience with diagnostics of low temperature, weakly ionized plasmas
Desired knowledge: optics, imaging, plasma physics, numerical techniques for data analysis, electronics, vacuum techniques, cryogenics, experiment design
General: Excellent oral and written communication skills
This position is to participate in a NASA-supported project to study the differences between heterogeneous and homogeneous nucleation of ice. These differences are relevant to astrophysical studies of ice dust that occur in situations such as protoplanetary disks and interstellar space. The activities will involve work at Caltech on a project supervised by Prof. Paul Bellan and also collaborating on a project at JPL supervised by Dr. Murthy Gudipati. The Caltech project uses a dusty plasma with cooled electrodes where water vapor is injected and ice grains form as a consequence of homogeneous nucleation. The JPL project has a cryogenic linear ion trap where ice grains form about a non-ice nucleus so the nucleation is heterogeneous. The Caltech experiment is operating and the cryogenic linear ion trap is under construction.
Appointment is for one year with extension to second year if performance satisfactory.
Applicants should submit the following to Professor Paul M. Bellan (pbellan@caltech.edu)
Short paragraph explaining interest in position and giving evidence of suitability
Publications on ice dusty plasmas by the Bellan group may be found on this website.
Caltech is an equal opportunity employer and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to age, race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, or national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Caltech is a world-renowned science and engineering Institute that marshals some of the world's brightest minds and most innovative tools to address fundamental scientific questions and pressing societal challenges. Caltech's extraordinary faculty and students are expanding our understanding of the universe and inventing the technologies of the future, with research interests from quantum science and engineering to bioinformatics and the nature of life itself, from human behavior and economics to energy and sustainability.
Caltech is small but prizes excellence and ambition. The contributions of Caltech's faculty and alumni have earned national and international recognition, including 46 Nobel Prizes. The Institute manages the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for NASA, sending probes to explore the planets of our solar system and quantify changes on our home planet; owns and operates large-scale research facilities such as the Seismological Laboratory and a global network of astronomical observatories, including the Palomar and W. M. Keck Observatories; and cofounded and co-manages LIGO, which, in 2016, observed gravitational waves for the first time.
The Institute has one of ...the nation's lowest student-to-faculty ratios, with more than 300 professorial faculty members offering a rigorous curriculum and access to varied learning opportunities and hands-on research to approximately 1,000 undergraduates and 1,400 graduate students. Caltech is an independent, privately supported institution with a 124-acre campus located in Pasadena, California.
Mission
The mission of the California Institute of Technology is to expand human knowledge and benefit society through research integrated with education. We investigate the most challenging, fundamental problems in science and technology in a singularly collegial, interdisciplinary atmosphere, while educating outstanding students to become creative members of society.
History
Founded as Throop University in 1891 in Pasadena, California, and renamed the California Institute of Technology in 1920.
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