PRISM programme - PhD student in Physics for Project NWARPS (MSCA COFUND)

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Testo originale dell'annuncio (in inglese)

*PRISM programme* The PRISM (PhD Research Programme for International Training in Sustainable Soft Matter) programme has launched its first call for applications, offering up to 14 fully funded PhD fellowships starting from 1 March 2027 at Paris Sciences & Lettres (PSL) University. The programme trains researchers to address ecological transition challenges through sustainable soft matter science, with projects focused on eco-friendly chemical processes, circular economy, renewable energies, and carbon capture, storage, and valorisation. Co-funded by the European Union under Horizon Europe MSCA COFUND (Grant Agreement 101261637) and partner institutions, PRISM provides interdisciplinary, international, and intersectoral training, including mobility opportunities, secondments, and courses in sustainability, innovation, entrepreneurship, career development, and transferable skills. Applications must be submitted via the PRISM website by 31 October 2026 (23:59 Paris time). *The PhD project* NWARPS: Nucleation, Wetting, Adhesion, and Rheology of Polymeric Surfaces The Folding Sliding Stretching Lab is seeking a PhD candidate to elucidate the microscopic mechanisms at play on soft interfaces to design smart materials for a sustainable future. This project is driven by the need for surfaces capable of efficiently harvesting dew—a vital resource in arid environments—and advancing thermal management and anti-icing technologies. Candidates can also engage in related projects, such as studying granular materials rendered cohesive by polymer coatings to produce “reversible” concrete. Crucially, the fundamental physics governing water condensation and droplet depinning on these soft interfaces extend far beyond dew harvesting. The underlying mechanisms—specifically heterogeneous nucleation and contact line dynamics—share profound analogies with fluid transport and precipitation processes essential for next-generation building materials. By understanding how polymer architectures control capillary trapping and phase transitions at the microscale, this project will provide critical physical insights to optimize CO2 mineralization and fluid dynamics within both carbon-capturing and reversible concrete. When moist air contacts a cold surface, it forms a breath figure composed of numerous small droplets, with nucleation occurring heterogeneously at discrete sites or homogeneously, depending on the substrate. While traditional studies on rigid substrates have established universal scaling laws for droplet size distributions, polymer-coated surfaces introduce complexities that remain poorly understood, but offer the promise of controlling nucleation. To harvest dew, drops must be evacuated by sliding over the surface. Here, polymers or microscopic heterogeneities significantly modify drop motion to control dynamics—facilitating sliding or pinning. Both droplet nucleation and contact line depinning are similar, as their underlying physical description relies on thermal hopping over energy barriers. The team and their collaborators at the University of Twente have made initial studies in both soft-nucleation [DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.134.188204] and the dynamics of a drop [DOI:10.1038/ncomms12545]. Candidates are invited to elaborate one or both of these questions in their thesis proposal, or present related situations of polymers at interfaces, where they govern critical physical phenomena such as wetting, nucleation, adhesion, and rheology. The thesis will pair a significant experimental component with analytical modelling and/or numerical simulation. A new setup to study vapor transport via diffusion or convection will improve upon a system currently at the University of Twente. This allows studying mechanical coupling between substrate elasticity and droplet density by varying the polymer architecture – from elastomers, to gels and networks with dangling ends, and the transition from nanoscale nucleation to macroscopic droplets via AFM or ellip