Associate Professor (Tenure Track) in Sport Sciences (Vuokatti) | Sports Technology Unit Vuokatti

The Department of Physics is seeking to recruit a Doctoral Researcher in Optical and Chemical Characterisation of Slow Liquid Scintillators for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay and Rare-Event Searches, starting 1 January 2027, or as soon as possible thereafter, for a period of three and a half years. The position is fixed-term, as it is expected to lead to the completion of the doctoral thesis. 

The position is part of the Academy Research Fellowship project "Bridging Detector and Nuclear Physics for Next-Generation Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay with Slow Liquid Scintillators" (PI: Dr. Mariia Fedkevych, Research Council of Finland, 2026–2030). The project aims to establish the experimental and theoretical foundations for a future large-scale slow Liquid Scintillator (LS) detector capable of searching for neutrinoless double beta decay (0νββ) — a rare nuclear process that, if observed, would prove that neutrinos are their own antiparticles and help to explain the origin of the matter–antimatter asymmetry of the Universe. With slow LS, it is possible to achieve Cherenkov–scintillation (C/S) separation by chemically tuning the emission-time profile of the scintillator, obtaining both calorimetric and topological information within a scalable medium suitable for tonne-scale rare-event experiments.

The doctoral researcher will be the main researcher responsible for the optical and chemical characterization work package of the project, which focuses on metal-loaded slow LS formulations (Mo, Te, Se) as candidates for isotope-loaded detectors. The work is conducted  in close collaborations with our international collaborators in Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and University of Padova, where the doctoral researcher will spend a research stay of approximately three months for advanced laboratory measurements.

The main tasks of the doctoral researcher include:

• synthesis and preparation of slow-LS samples with varying metal-organic dopant concentrations;
• measurement of optical properties (absorption and emission spectra, decay-time constants, attenuation lengths) using spectrophotometry and time-correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC);
• evaluation of chemical compatibility, long-term stability, and purification efficiency;
• building a database of validated optical parameters. This database will serve as direct input to the Geant4-based optical simulations and ML-based event reconstruction and classification tools being developed within the broader project, linking the doctoral researcher's experimental work to the detector simulation and data analysis efforts.

The student will also have an opportunity to participate in in-beam characterization campaigns at INFN Legnaro National Laboratory (LNL, Italy) and contribute to scientific publications, project reports and scientific events.

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