PhD scholarship in Developing Switchable Ligands to Control Gold Nanocluster Interfaces

This scholarship is fully funded by an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award and aims to understand how reactions at the interface of gold nanoclusters influences their properties. The project is designed for students interested in computational and materials chemistry who want to learn to perform and analyse cutting-edge molecular modelling and advanced multiscale simulations. The research will be undertaken in the Materials Modelling and Simulation group within the Discipline of Materials, Manufacturing, and Mechatronics at the School of Engineering at RMIT. The project benefits from collaborations with high-calibre experimental research groups and offers excellent development opportunities through professional networks. There are two main research streams: assessing the impact of photooxidation on gold nanocluster integrity, and developing novel synthetic strategies for deliberate gold nanocluster modification.