Your teams

The project is a collaboration between MAX IV (specifically, the DanMAX beamline), the BatMAX hub and Lund University. The position is an exciting opportunity for a candidate looking to work in a highly collaborative environment across many closely connected teams.

The DanMAX beamline, in the Hard X-ray Group at MAX IV, is a materials science beamline specialising in X-ray diffraction and full-field imaging techniques. The beamline serves a very wide user community, spanning physics and chemistry to medical science. A significant fraction of the user base is studying batteries and battery materials.

This X-ray Diffraction – Computed Tomography (XRD-CT) postdoctoral research position is hosted by the Division of Solid Mechanics at Lund University. Research in solid mechanics at Lund University is specifically focused on theoretical, numerical and experimental aspects of the mechanics of materials. The division has strong activity in the development and exploitation of X-ray and neutron methods for materials research and in, amongst other things, research into understanding the coupled electrochemo-mechanical processes of solid-state batteries; this research is connected to the wider batteries research community in Lund.

The project

The project will be run within the BatMAX hub at MAX IV, which is a consortium of 4 universities (Chalmers, Lund, Uppsala and Aarhus) and MAX IV that will closely collaborate to tackle challenges associated with Na-ion solid state batteries through 6 weeks of beamtime per year across 6 different beamlines. The BatMAX hub links to the Battery Matrix, an internal group at MAX IV to enable lab-wide collaboration on the topic of battery research. This postdoctoral researcher position will play an active role in cross-beamline activities through both the BatMAX Hub and the Battery Matrix.

This position is one of three postdocs linked to the BatMAX consortium, each with a different speciality, that links the university groups to MAX IV. The positions are funded through the COMPEL national strategic initiative, which aims to strengthen battery research and education in Sweden.

DanMAX has, for some time, offered XRD-CT experiments as part of the user program but the methodology has not been optimised. In this project, we will optimise the scanning method, the hardware and the analysis software to make this powerful method more accessible and applicable. Recently, new diamond CRLs were procured for DanMAX, which will allow focusing of the beam to approximately 1-2 µm, thus, significantly improving the possible resolution. Combined with our fast tomography stages and better scan sequencing, significant improvements to the temporal and spatial resolution will be possible and will enable expansion of the applicability of this type of experiment for battery science, as well as for many other research domains. This project will also include the development of iterative reconstruction and noise suppression algorithms towards improving the quality of the spatially resolved XRD data.