Applied Physicist for Plasma Sources

Applied Physicist for Plasma Sources

CERN - European Organization for Nuclear Research

Geneva, Switzerland

Your responsibilities

The Vacuum, Surfaces and Coatings (VSC) Group within the Technology (TE) Department is responsible for the entire lifecycle of accelerator vacuum systems at CERN, from development and design to installation, operation, and maintenance. We operate facilities for the measurement of vacuum performance and compatibilities of materials and surface technologies, as well as for thin film coating, surface finishing, and vacuum-related physical and chemical characterization.

Development of plasma sources for the purpose of specific coating applications and for application related to new accelerators concepts like plasma wakefield accelerator (PWFA) are also part of the group activities.

This latter activity requires the development of highly uniform and reproducible plasma for the AWAKE project. A dedicated R&D program on scalable plasma source addresses these challenges with the development of plasma sources based on RF-heated plasma and pulsed-DC discharge plasma.

Your main activities will be:

• Developing and optimising a length scalable discharge plasma source;
• Adaptating/developing plasma diagnostics to characterise the discharge temporally and spatially, with the help of external institutes and source diagnostics (temperature, vacuum, electrical, etc.);
• Simulating the plasma source from plasma (including excitation circuit) and vacuum perspectives (gas density, tube temperature, pumping scheme - active/passive with NEG cartridge, etc.) to support the source design and its tolerances (effect of temperature stability, tube diameter, optimization of electrodes design, etc.), as well as benchmark with experimental data;
• Transferring the experimental plasma characteristics into wakefield simulations to quantify the acceptable tolerances of the source for the application;
• Participating in the different meetings/workshop/publications within the project and PWFA community.

Your profile

Skills:

• Knowledge in "cold" plasma physics;
• Experience of cold plasma source design;
• Experience of plasma diagnostics (interferometry, optical emission spectroscopy, etc.);
• Experienced with the use of vacuum systems and its measurement;
• Spoken and written English or French, with a commitment to learn the basics of the other language.

Eligibility criteria:

• You are a national of a CERN Member or Associate Member State;
• You have a professional background in Material Science (or a related field) and have either:
  • a Master's degree with 2 to 6 years of post-graduation professional experience;
  • or a PhD with no more than 3 years of post-graduation professional experience.
• You have never had a CERN fellow or graduate contract before.

Apply NowDeadline 10 July