PhD on Rotational Spectroscopy at King's College London, England
One of the major challenges of our lifetime is climate change. Aerosols play a vital role in our climate by partially counteracting the warming caused by greenhouse gases. A main constituent of aerosol is secondary organic aerosol (SOA), formed from the reactions of organic matter in the atmosphere. However, SOA is also one of the largest sources of uncertainty in climate modelling as its composition, formation and evolution are not well understood. A critical process in the formation of SOA is atmospheric nucleation, which occurs when stable molecular clusters are formed spontaneously from gas phase molecules. However, knowledge on nucleation is limited, as information on the structures of the smallest molecular clusters that initiate the process is missing. Understanding the nature of critical clusters is the first step to reveal the formation mechanism of atmospheric particles and their composition. The aim of this project is to determine the first aggregation stages of clusters of SOA precursors at the molecular level.
Deadline for application: 26 May 2023