Internship I 6 months | Fulltime/40h | Belvaux

Your work environment

The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) is a Research and Technology Organization (RTO) active in the fields of materials, environment and IT. By transforming scientific knowledge into technologies, smart data and tools, LIST empowers citizens in their choices, public authorities in their decisions and businesses in their strategies.

https://www.list.lu/

You will be part of the LIST Materials Research and Technology department

Through its research into advanced materials and processes, the “Materials Research and Technology” (MRT) department, with its 200 researchers and engineers, contributes to the emergence of enabling technologies that underpin the innovation processes of local and international industry. MRT’s activities hinge on four thematic pillars: nanomaterials and nanotechnology, scientific instrumentation and process technology, structural composites, and functional polymers.

The department also includes four high-tech platforms, focusing on composites, prototyping, characterization and testing. These platforms serve both LIST research staff, and other stakeholders in Luxembourg.

The smart city concept seeks to alleviate urban challenges including infrastructure and network capacity. The frequencies proposed for the upcoming 5G network would result in shorter broadcast distances and network dead zones. Additional access points and signal repeaters, embedded into existing infrastructure, help mitigate these issues through embedding transparent antennas into the windows by means of transparent conductors (TCs). This advance will have also a favourable impact on the networking of IoT devices with short range communication as BLE, NFC or IEEE 802.15.4 standards and LR-WPANs protocols. Transparent antennas possess, however a major challenge: low gain. The technology and processes that make an opaque antenna transparent contribute to the inefficiency of the antenna via more resistive materials, thinner conductive materials, or meshing effects. These inefficiency decreases the antenna gain, limiting the efficacy of the antenna. This lower gain can be countered by means of employing antennas in array structure and/or by optimizing the thin film deposition process to improve the conductivity. In this context, we propose the development and the testing in our facilities of antenna prototypes addressing this challenge.

The Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology proposes a platform with complementary tools for the development of thin film processes (ALD, CVD, PVD) and microfabrication (UV laser and e-beam lithographies) facilities to realize functional chips with dedicated instrumentation. The platform allows to process various types of inorganic or organic substrates, flat or 3D objects, flexible substrates and powders by FBR (Fluidized Bed Reactor) with up-scaling capabilities. The platform covers the requests and specifications from fundamental Research partners on breakthrough materials to the development and small production processing for industrial partners. Past, ongoing and future projects in the LIST cleanroom concern research and development projects addressing microsystems for sensors (strain sensors, gas sensors), energy harvesters, TCs for transparent electronics, fillers’ coating for composites.

What you will be doing

We are currently running projects about the realization of new nanotechnology based sensors and generators with IoT capabilities by the means of low power wireless communication modules. The challenges of the internship work will be the design and the fabrication of a high gain passive transparent antenna for wireless communication compatible with the autonomous sensors units developed in the team. The student will have also the possibility to participate in field testing of the antenna prototype. The applications concern industrial market.

Which profile we are looking for

• Last year undergraduate student (Master 2, last year Engineer School) in Materials Physics, or Radio Frequency/Telecommunication Engineering with interest in Materials Science
• Have a strong taste for experimental work
• Have a strong taste for developing actual devices
• Familiar with design of experiments
• Have a rigour, methodology and efficiency for reports writing
• Highly motivated to start a thesis after the internship
• Have an excellent academic record
• Knowledge in Radio Frequency devices (design with numerical tools as openEMS or COMSOL, realisation)
• First experience of clean room environment and microfabrication techniques with lithography mask design skills, and ideally with materials processing by deposition with physical or chemical methods (as ALD, CVD, PVD or others) and selective etching (dry or wet)
• Practice with material characterization such as SEM/EDX, semiconductors physics and practice with electrical characterizations (DC and RF by VNA)
• Language proficiency in French or English

Interested ? Please apply online

https://www.list.lu/en/jobs/interns/

Job reference: MRT-2021-Intern-028

Start date : February 2021

Application file:

• A CV
• A motivation letter

Apply online: https://bit.ly/3qkqP3a

Your working environment

The research department

https://www.list.lu/en/mrt/

https://www.list.lu/en/jobs/researchers/