The University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing’s (FER) research group Laboratory for Intelligent Sensor Systems (LISS), is hiring young talents. In collaboration with an industrial semiconductor partner Infineon Technologies, Austria, LISS is looking for a candidate interested in conducting PhD research in the domain of microelectromechanical (MEMS) sensor and system design.
Specifically, the topic addresses the research on ultra-low power piezoelectric micro-resonator systems for the passive detection of mechanical vibrations in the acoustic and ultrasonic frequency range. When integrated with low-power CMOS readout electronics, such MEMS device constitutes a microscale system-on-chip (SoC) enabling the recognition of acoustic events at “near zero power”. Possible application system may include voice-activity detection for consumer MEMS microphones, industrial non-destructive acoustic emission testing, preventive maintenance, and structural health monitoring, such as cracks, corrosion, leakage, or cavitation detection, biomedical wearables for physiological monitoring, implantable hearing-aids, bone-conductive microphone devices, security applications, smart home and smart city IoT, environmental monitoring, etc.
The scope of the research will cover state-of-the-art analysis and MEMS system design, entailing modelling, cleanroom microfabrication prototyping, response characterization, and functional laboratory testing of the proposed MEMS device under the technological support of the industrial partner Infineon.
The arrangement includes:
- enrolling PhD study program at FER, with covered PhD tuition fee
- 36 months of full-time employment at FER for the duration of PhD study
- academic research under the supervision of an academic mentor from FER and industrial mentorship by Infineon
- access to microfabrication services, infrastructure, and equipment, supported by Infineon
- spending 3 months per year at Infineon, Austria
- budget for travel to conferences and publications
- employment opportunity at Infineon after finishing PhD
Qualifications and skills:
- MSc degree in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or physics
- familiarity with fundamental concepts in electronic circuits, components, systems, instrumentation, measurements, sensor technologies, mechanics, wave physics, material science
- basic understanding of materials and technological processes used in the semiconductor industry
- creative, ambitious, motivated, open-minded, with a passion for technology
- willingness to learn, problem-solving, bias toward research
- academic writing, documentation skills, fluent in English
- autonomous and self-organized
Application process:
Applicants are invited to express their initial interest by sending their short CV by e-mail to Asst. Prof. Dinko Oletić. We especially invite master students completing their MSc study and considering enrolling PhD study at FER.
