HiWi-Job / student assistant position – Zukunftskolleg
A student assistant position is available for 6 months, starting as soon as possible, 10 h/week.
HiWi-Job / student assistant position – Zukunftskolleg
Statistical mechanics of non-equilibrium processes in defect-rich ordered solids
Unter Leitung von Dr. Saswati Ganguly / AG Fuchs
Project description:
When a crystalline phase undergoes structural transformation, phenomenological theories justifying the observed transformation kinetics, assume meta-stability of the initial parent crystalline phase. The resulting nucleation and growth kinetics of the product phase has been verified in experiments performed in colloidal crystals. Recent research[1], explaining the yielding of defect free crystals, indicates a similar process with the deformed crystal being the thermodynamically meta-stable phase. Moreover, the spatial projection operator formalism[2] that forms the foundation of this[1] theory, provides useful insights[3] regarding the microscopics of a solid-solid martensitic transition. The main objective of this project is to frame the two problems of (1)plastic deformation and (2)structural transformation using the same language of phase transition in presence of an external field. This will provide deeper insight into the fundamental role of microscopic interactions and correlations in influencing the thermo-mechanical response of crystals with local or topological defects.
[1] P. Nath, S. Ganguly, J. Horbach, P. Sollich, S. Karmakar, S. Sengupta, PNAS 115 (19), E4322-E4329, (2018). [2] S. Ganguly*, S. Sengupta, P. Sollich, Soft Matter 11 (22), 4517, (2015). [3]S. Ganguly*, P. S. Mohanty, P. Schurtenberger, S. Sengupta, A. Yethiraj, Soft Matter 13 (27), 4689, (2017).
Responsibilities of the student assistant:
A student assistant position is available for 6 months, starting as soon as possible, 10 h/week. The applicant should have experience in scientific computation. They will be responsible for implementing Monte Carlo simulations, written in fortran, python or any other programming language of their choosing. The simulations will be aimed at acquiring verifiable quantitative predictions like energy barriers and parameters effecting the kinetics of structural transformations. The student assistant will gain experience in using the varied sets of theoretical and simulations tools employed in the field of non-equilibrium classical statistical mechanics.
Contact: Dr. Saswati Ganguly, saswati.ganguly@uni-konstanz.de