Diamond Light Source is the UK’s national synchrotron science facility. Located at Harwell Science & Innovation Campus in Oxfordshire, we enable world-leading research across a wide range of scientific disciplines and industrial applications.

The I21 beamline is a dedicated Inelastic X-ray Scattering (IXS) facility at Diamond, focusing on the soft X-ray energy range (250 – 3000 eV) with unprecedented energy resolving power (a few tens of thousands at 1 keV). The Beamline cover all 3d transition metal L-edges, 4f rare earth M-edges, and some 4d (5d) transition metal L(M)-edges in the long term. The main technique, Resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering (RIXS), is sensitive to spin, charge, orbital, and lattice degrees of freedom. By using the energy and momentum dependent RIXS, we will be able to investigate the electronic, magnetic and lattice behaviour of novel materials of interest in both condensed matter physics and material science. The beamline construction is almost completed with first users expected in summer 2017.

The postholder will be involved with carrying out experiments on I21 or relevant Beamline facilities on novel materials. In particular research will be focused on looking at collective excitations (magnon, phonon, exciton, orbiton, etc) on systems with strong electronic interactions such as Mott insulators, high-temperature superconductors, and transition metal oxide heterostructures. 

The successful candidate will be expected to spend 20% time on beamline development and users support. They will also be expected to form collaborations with outside universities and institutions.

• Carrying out their own in-house research programme including sample characterisation and experiments, the analysis and publication of the results;
• Testing and commissioning of a range of sample environment equipment necessary for their research work;
• Supporting users at I21 close to their scientific interest;
• Presenting in-house research, beamline developments and scientific papers at meetings and conferences;
• Contributing to the Beamline commissioning and maintenance of the beamline during operation;
• Development and testing of new equipment and software at the beamline.

• Appropriate first degree;
• PhD;
• Good knowledge of condensed matter physics including magnetism;
• Skilled in computer programming for data analysis;
• Ability and initiative to get to the heart of the problem and take it effectively through to completion;
• Good interpersonal, communication and presentational skills;
• Good organisational and planning skills;
• Ability to interact effectively with staff at all levels;
• Ability to work as part of a multi-disciplinary team;
• Self-motivation;
• Must be available to travel occasionally within the UK and abroad, including overnight absences;
• Must be available to work long/unsocial hours during short period of time (1 week);
• Good laboratory research skills;
• Ability to write research papers;
• Ability to plan and then carry out a research project;
• Good Problem solving skills;
• Fault diagnosis abilities.

• Experience with ultrahigh vacuum and cryogenics;
• Experience with  resonant x-ray inelastic (elastic) scattering;
• Experience with x-ray absorption, emission and photoemission spectroscopy;
• Relevant synchrotron research experience;
• Experience of beamline instrumentation.

• Must be available to travel occasionally within the UK and abroad, including overnight absences;
• Must be available to work long/unsocial hours during short period of time (1 week).