Cosmic Ray Effects on Electronics Industrial Placement

Brief overview of the scheme

STFC’s incredibly diverse range of placements allow you to work alongside world leading engineers, scientists, and technicians in highly collaborative environments. Whichever you choose, you will become a critical member of the team in which you will be exposed to exciting projects and challenges from the start. You will be supported every step of the way by our dedicated Early Careers Development Team who will also ensure you benefit from a range of personal development opportunities.

About the role and a summary of key duties & responsibilities

A sandwich student vacancy exists to join the group running the ChipIR and NILE instruments. The successful candidate will join us in evaluating the characteristics of the NILE instrument sources, using different detection techniques, and in determining the best detection technique for each instrument.

Neutrons of high energies (> 10 MeV) are the source of disruption and reliability problems in modern electronic devices, particularly in highly advanced technologies. The successful candidate will identify the effects of neutron irradiation on electronic technologies that are being increasingly used in safety critical applications, such as for automating vehicles and for the aerospace market. These technologies include SRAM memories, and potentially machine learning and AI systems. Neural networks are of particular interest: thanks to the intrinsic approximate nature of neural-network computation, some output errors are sufficiently close to the expected value that the application treats them as correct.

Through irradiation campaigns, the student will compare ChipIR and the DT neutron generator and will examine the disruptions caused by the intermediate energy neutrons produced by the DD neutron source.

You will:

• Work within a team delivering neutron irradiation facilities to a world-wide electronics industry
• Gain experience in methods for the calibration of the ChipIR instrument and the NILE neutron generators.
• Develop intermediate and fast-neutron irradiation experiments on solid-state detectors (such as Si, SiC, diamond detectors) and scintillators
• Develop fast-neutron irradiation experiments on electronics devices (such as SRAMs, FPGAs), collaborating with international users.
• Perform fast neutron measurement for diagnostics on the ISIS source and potentially cross calibration with other worldwide neutron facilities.
• Develop some software for the analysis of the data or the interface with the detectors
• Compare results with neutrons of different energies (thermal, 2.5 MeV, 14 MeV and atmospheric)

The position represents an excellent opportunity to work on an innovative instrument in a highly industrially relevant and rapidly developing area and to develop your skills and knowledge in physics, scientific and technical computing, problem solving, communication and team working.

To apply for this placement, we are looking for the following:

Essential:

• Currently enrolled on an undergraduate degree course and returning to university/studies to complete your undergraduate degree following the placement (S)
• Are required or have requested to take an industrial placement year (S)
• Have the right to live and work in the UK for the duration of the placement (S)
• Able to commence employment in summer 2025 (S)
• Good interpersonal and communications skills (S&I)
• Demonstrated ability and initiative in solving technical and scientific problems (S&I)
• Enthusiasm, motivation and initiative (S&I)
• Ability to work independently and in a team (S&I)
• High degree of responsibility, commitment and reliability (S&I)

Desirable:

• Awareness of some aspects of scientific data analysis techniques, software and programming (S&I)
• Some knowledge of one or more of the standard computing languages used at ISIS (e.g. Python, Fortran, C, C++, Java, Visual Basic, Labview etc) (S&I)

Part of our application process involves submitting your CV and a cover letter. Your cover letter should address your suitability for the opportunity based how you meet each essential criteria stated in this advert.

Please note that we hold the right to close this vacancy early if a sufficient number of applications have been received.