Postdoctoral Fellowship (14) at ETH Zurich, Switzerland

The position is part of Attochirality, a new ERC Advanced Grant project that will establish attosecond chiroptical pump-probe spectroscopy. The project combines a 100 kHz few-cycle Yb-fibre laser, circularly polarized isolated attosecond pulses, tuneable 1-2 fs deep-ultraviolet and near-infrared pulses, and electron-ion coincidence detection in a reaction microscope. The scientific programme addresses chiral electronic wave packets, charge migration and charge transfer, and the transition from isolated to microhydrated and fully solvated molecules.

The postdoctoral researcher will play a leading experimental role in establishing the new optical platform and spin-resolved detection capability. The position combines advanced few-cycle and XUV optics, attosecond pulse metrology, reaction-microscope spectroscopy and the development of spin-sensitive electron detection for time-resolved studies of chiral charge migration.

The NCCR CLIM+ is a new National Center of Competence in Research that establishes the first fully interdisciplinary, Switzerland-wide climate research community. NCCR CLIM+ aims to tackle pressing issues related to climate extremes such as heatwaves, floods, heavy rainfalls, droughts, wildfires, and further compound events. The research programme will interact with stakeholders ranging from public health to finance, agriculture, and water management to produce actionable solutions related to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Further information about NCCR CLIM+ can be found on our website.

To facilitate cross-disciplinary communication and stakeholder engagement, NCCR CLIM+ will develop storylines of plausible futures encompassing the physical and social dimensions of extreme climate outcomes. The storylines offer narratives that allow our interdisciplinary research team to carefully assess co-benefits and trade-offs in the transformation towards a climate-resilient society.

The project investigates how intense ultrafast optical or Terahertz excitation can generate, manipulate and probe novel dynamical states in quantum materials. A central research direction is the exploration of non-Hermitian phase transitions, a recently discovered and fundamentally new class of phase transitions that emerges in the non-equilibrium dynamics of driven systems. The project aims to establish their microscopic origin, identify their universal properties and explore their manifestation across a broad range of strongly correlated materials.

More broadly, the project builds on a background of fundamental questions of ultrafast light–matter interaction in condensed-matter systems where strong electronic correlations give rise to emergent collective phenomena. Many of the materials, dynamical states and physical mechanisms under investigation remain largely unexplored, providing exceptional opportunities to discover new physical phenomena and establish new concepts in condensed-matter physics.

• Conduct applied research on the metabolism and physiology of non-Saccharomyces yeasts in beer and wine, with particular emphasis on respiratory metabolism and non-alcoholic fermentations
• Investigate the biochemistry of respiratory metabolism in yeasts and its influence on wine and beer organoleptic quality
• Develop, optimize and scale biotechnological fermentation processes from laboratory to pilot and industrial scale
• Collaborate with industrial partners from the brewing, wine and biotechnology sectors to translate research into industrial applications

We’re looking for a skilled Postdoctoral Researcher to develop and deploy cutting-edge Iterative Learning Control (ILC) algorithms on real-world industrial platforms. The project requires good theoretical and hands-on expertise. Perfectly suited for those at the intersection of theory and application.

• Develop customized ILC and parameter optimization algorithms for industrial applications, going from theoretical analysis to implementation and testing on real systems
• Develop adaptive control and estimation schemes to support hardware implementation
• Collaborate closely with our industry partner to solve unique problems

We are seeking an exceptional and highly motivated Postdoctoral Researcher to lead research on multimodal reasoning models for oncology. The project focuses on developing, post-training, and evaluating flexible AI models that can support complex oncologic diagnostic and therapeutic decision-making in a safe, transparent, and clinically grounded manner.

The successful candidate will work on oncology-focused multimodal reasoning models that combine language, vision, biomedical knowledge, clinical context, and relevant patient-level data to produce reliable, auditable, and uncertainty-aware outputs. 

A major focus of the position is the development of AI-based reasoning strategies for oncology, including tool-augmented inference, multi-agent or compound model workflows, process supervision, verifier-guided training, and reinforcement learning-based post-training. The goal is to build systems that can justify recommendations, cite supporting evidence, calibrate uncertainty, defer appropriately, and operate safely in clinically realistic settings.

Photonic integrated circuits promise advanced functionality for applications such as quantum information processing and precision sensing. Thin film lithium niobate (TFLN) is a maturing photonics platform that can integrate frequency conversion, quantum light sources and high speed electro-optic modulation on a single device.

In the Optical Nanomaterial Group, we specialize in the nanofabrication and optical characterization of TFLN photonic circuits for applications in nonlinear optics, quantum communications and quantum sensing. The open positions will work on (1) TFLN circuits for quantum networks and (2) TFLN circuits for quantum sensing – both projects are 3 years long.

1. Quantum networks involve entangling distant quantum memories, however many of the leading quantum memories operate at visible wavelengths. We aim to use TFLN photonics for sources of non-degenerate entangled photon-pairs with one photon at the quantum memory wavelength and the other photon in the telecom band for long distance transmission over optical fiber. This position is part of a Switzerland-wide consortium on quantum networks
2. Quantum light can enhance sensing through phase estimation and absorption measurements with undetected photons. We aim to use TFLN photonics for generating squeezed vacuum for gas sensing applications, where periodically poled waveguides and photon number resolution detection provide a quantum advantage. This position is part of a QuantERA project with Imperial College London, the University of Oxford and ICFO

The introduction of fiber optics in the 1970s has revolutionized the telecommunications industry upon the replacement of copper wires and played a major role in the advent of the Information Age – One high bandwidth fiber optic cable can replace thousands of electrical links to transmit the same amount of information. As a parallel to the thriving fields of soft devices and robots controlled by electrical signals, soft optics is emerging as a new platform that uses the modulation of light in soft matter to encode multifunctionalities in the optical path. 

The focus of this project is to expand both actuation and sensing capacities with light. The project will create an artificial sensorimotor network with densely distributed actuators and sensors similar to the biological neuromasculature. The first part of the project will develop a single soft optical fiber with distributed multimodal actuators that are also self-sensing. The second part will study grouped behavior of these “muscle bundles” to enable muscle coordination for complex/adaptive/efficient movements.

The introduction of fiber optics in the 1970s has revolutionized the telecommunications industry upon the replacement of copper wires and played a major role in the advent of the Information Age – One high bandwidth fiber optic cable can replace thousands of electrical links to transmit the same amount of information. As a parallel to the thriving fields of soft devices and robots controlled by electrical signals, soft optics is emerging as a new platform that uses the modulation of light in soft matter to encode multifunctionalities in the optical path. 

The focus of this project is to create biocompatible, high performance soft actuators multiplexed by light, all integrated on a miniature fiber, delivering advanced robotic and biomedical functions as minimally invasive surgical tools and implantable devices.

Our group addresses key challenges in quantum science by building and exploiting hybrid quantum systems consisting of individually controlled atoms and atomic ensembles.

Current research directions include:

• Demonstrating scalable architectures for fault-tolerant quantum information processing, featuring reconfigurable local control, rapid quantum non-demolition readout, and fast error-syndrome extraction
• Developing strong atom–light interfaces to enable quantum interconnects and modular quantum systems
• Investigating non-equilibrium quantum many-body dynamics and quantum information dynamics in programmable atom arrays