A 2 years postdoctoral position is currently open at Institut de Physique de Rennes (France). Flexible starting date from October 1st, 2018 to January 1st, 2019. The project is experimental and theoretical, and part of the project funded by CNRS Momentum “Self-organization of fluid and solid structures at fluid interfaces at the macroscopic scale”. The Institut de Physique de Rennes covers a wide range of topics in modern physics, and includes an internationally recognized team in soft matter.
Context The controlled manipulation of fluids and solids on fluid interfaces is of great importance in science and industry. Interfacial instabilities constitute a powerful tool for such manipulations. Furthermore, they can serve as a platform for the realization of artificial active matter at fluid interfaces.
Project In the Faraday instability a liquid bath exhibits surface waves when oscillated vertically. In this project, the Faraday instability will be used as a tool to control the organization of collections of floating centimeterscale solid objects. Variation of the object shape, the instability pattern and the boundary conditions would allow us to explore a number of different self-organizing systems, while investigating the interplay between gravity-capillary surface waves and floating objects.
Required skills Expertise in experimental Fluid Mechanics, setting up and control of experiments through hardware and software (Matlab, Arduino…). Interest in theoretical modelling of the experiments. Collaborations Possible collaboration with MIT and Brown University. Contact: Giuseppe Pucci, [email protected]. Links: http://www.gpucci.net http://cnrsinfo.cnrs.fr/intranet/actus/171221-momentum.html