Aalto University is a community of bold thinkers where science and art meet technology and business. We are committed to identifying and solving grand societal challenges and building an innovative future. Aalto University has six schools with nearly 11 000 students and nearly 400 professors. Our campuses are located in Espoo, Helsinki, and Mikkeli, Finland.

Aalto’s activities are guided by integrity – honesty, equality, impartiality, and respect for others. As such, it is everyone’s responsibility in the university community to promote equality. We are dedicated to attracting the best applicants to join us in building a department that reflects the future of the discipline; in particular, we aim to increase the number of women and other underrepresented groups in our studies programmes and in leadership positions with established tracks to tenure.

The Department of Applied Physics (http://physics.aalto.fi) at the School of Science is seeking a

Master’s Thesis worker in photovoltaic energy harvesting for wearables and IoT

Combining expertise in photovoltaics and textile design, an interdisciplinary research team at Aalto University has developed an efficient, durable, and aesthetic concept for integrating solar cells with textiles to provide energy autonomous operation for wearable electronics and smart textile applications. We now seek for a master’s thesis worker to carry out a research study on the photovoltaic energy availability for textile electronics. The research carried out in a two-year Co-Innovation project funded by Business Finland (Sun-Powered Textiles, 2019 - 2021) involves close interdisciplinary collaboration with textile design researchers and the Finish textile and electronics industry.

Motivation

Batteries currently used as power source in textile electronics limit the scope of smart textile applications due to issues with cost, reliability, usability, and environmental sustainability. Harvesting energy from sunlight solar cells could provide smart textiles with energy autonomous operation, but their integration with textiles requires that both the energetic and aesthetic performance, in addition to other technical properties, match the end-use needs. The Sun-Powered Textiles project addresses this challenge by combining solar cell and textile photonics research with textile design and engineering, textile manufacturing, prototyping, testing, and market research.

Your role and goals

You will work together with physicists and textile design researchers from Aalto University and with textile and electrical engineers from the partner companies to estimate the photovoltaic energy generation potential of textile-integrated solar cells at different end-use conditions relevant for wearable and textile electronics applications. The work includes laboratory and field measurements of the solar cell performance and illumination conditions and scenario analyses and simulations of their energy generation potential in those conditions.

For the simulations, you will develop a basic opto-electrical model for textile solar cells based on their current-voltage characterization and spectral response measurements and the measured illumination spectra. Your model will consider the time-dependent variation of the illumination, temperature, and the orientation of the solar cells with respect to the primary light source according to the different scenarios how the solar cells would be used in practice. You will use the model to determine to area of solar cells and the battery capacity needed to fulfil the energy needs of specific applications, thereby informing which of them would be feasible to be powered with solar cells. Your results will guide the innovation of new energy-autonomous textile electronics developed in the project but will also be relevant for photovoltaic energy harvesting for wireless electronics in general.

In this role, you will actively interact with and provide input to other project researchers working on solar textile design, testing and prototyping, as well as with the partner companies. You will especially work in collaboration with Haltian, whose garment field testing solution, Thingsee Activity, will be used collect light intensity and solar cell performance data from authentic end-use conditions, to provide both input data for and experimental verification of the model calculations.

Working group

The position is situated in the New Energy Technologies group in the Department of Applied Physics (School of Science) and involves close collaboration between the Fashion/Textiles Futures research group in the Department of Design (School of Arts and Design). The interdisciplinary research team dedicated to this project includes a postdoctoral researcher, a master’s thesis worker (this position), and a research assistant in the Department of Applied Physics; and a postdoctoral researcher, a designer in residence, and two master’s thesis workers in the Department of Design. The team aims for high-quality scientific publications and commercialization of the research results.

The physics team lead Dr. Janne Halme, who will be your thesis supervisor, has expertise in solar cell device physics, printed solar cells, optical modelling and characterization, and solar cell durability studies. His team’s current focus is on new photonic approaches for efficient, coloured photovoltaics for building- and product-integration. The New Energy Technologies group has fully equipped solar cell characterization and accelerated aging labs, and access to high-quality spectroscopy and microscopy facilities in the Department of Applied Physics and through the OtaNano research infrastructure.

The textile team lead Dr. Elina Ilén is D.Sc. (Tech) in fibre materials, and has long experience and deep interests to R&D of wearable textile electronics and functional clothing innovations. The Fashion/Textile Futures group explores new perspectives on human-centred design research with a focus on sustainable fashion and textiles. The group members’ research activities include material-based research, aesthetics and creativity studies, practice-based research, and strategic fashion and textile management.

The Sun-Powered Textiles consortium also includes three companies with parallel R&D projects: Foxa (high-performance textiles for clothing industry), Lindström (professional clothing and textile services) and Haltian (electronics solutions for wearables and Internet-of-Things).

Requirements

• B.Sc. degree in physics, electrical engineering, or equivalent on a topic of relevance.
• Possibility to work full time for six months on the project, starting latest in January 2020.
• Knowledge on optics, photonics, photovoltaics or other related topics suitable as the theoretical background for the work, demonstrated through study record or work experience.
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills suitable for interdisciplinary teamwork.
• Ability to communicate scientific research to non-expert audiences and collaborators.
• Interests in active collaboration with the industry.
• Very good command of English language, both spoken and written.

We also appreciate experience or genuine interest in application-driven scientific research and commercialization of research results. Experience from collecting, processing, visualization and analysis large measurement data sets e.g. from sensors with suitable software tools is a benefit. Good command of Finnish language is a benefit. The selection is based on the candidate’s suitability in and the benefit for the project team, meaning that in addition to academic performance, we want to find a person whose interests are good fit for the team.

We offer

• High-end laboratory facilities and friendly colleagues
• A research community that values bold, innovative research
• Opportunities to learn and hone interdisciplinary and industrial collaboration skills
• Opportunity to collaborate with a leading wearable and IoT electronics company in Finland

Salary and duration

The contract will be for six months. We seek to fill the position as soon as possible but later starting dates are possible. The standard monthly salary level of maser thesis worker starts at EUR 2 060,60. The contract includes occupational health care and holiday bonus. The position will be located at the Aalto University Otaniemi Campus (connected to Helsinki by Metro).

How to apply

Please apply through the link "Apply for this job" at the bottom of this page. Application material should include (all documents in English):

• Letter of motivation (maximum one page). The motivation letter is the most important part of your application. It should not be plain a summary of your CV but explain what motivates you to apply to this position, and how your previous projects give you a background that makes you a good candidate according to the requirements listed above. Tell also how you wish to leverage this position and project to advance your career.
• Resume or CV (indicating at least your contact information, working history, interdisciplinary collaboration, list of publications (if any), knowledge areas of physics and engineering, experimental skills, language skills, completed and ongoing university degrees indicating the grade point average, and honours and awards).
• Two letters of recommendation or contact details of two possible referees.

Please send your application as a single PDF file at your earliest convenience by 30.11.2019 through the recruitment system ("Apply for this job" link at the bottom of the page).

For further information of the available position, contact Janne Halme, [email protected], +358 50 344 1695

Aalto University reserves the right for justified reasons to leave the position open, to extend the application period, and to consider candidates who have not submitted applications during the application period. Applications will be considered until the position is filled.

Espoo, October 30, 2019