Quantum Spin Dynamics: fundamental theories of magnetic interactions in chemical systems, with applications to magnetic resonance spectroscopy and medical imaging

A fully funded three-year PhD studentship, starting on 1 Oct 2016, is available in the Quantum Spin Dynamics research group at the Chemistry Department of the University of Southampton. The studentship includes EU level university fees and a tax-free stipend of £14,296 per annum.

The research project deals with fundamental theories of magnetic interactions in chemical systems, with applications to magnetic resonance spectroscopy and medical imaging. In particular, the project will contribute to the development of large-scale theoretical modelling tools that offer unprecedented insight into quantum mechanical processes that underpin magnetic phenomena in chemical and biological systems.

Our recent work on the matter includes spin dynamics processes in photosynthetic reaction systems, hypothetical magnetic field sensing mechanisms in migratory birds, magnetic contrast agents for medical imaging and bio-molecular magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

The School of Chemistry at the University of Southampton is one of the finest chemistry departments in the UK, renowned especially for its work in crystallography, electrochemistry and magnetic resonance. In particular the Biological NMR Centre within Chemistry hosts a 600 MHz NMR spectrometer equipped with a state-of-the-art cold probe, as well as 400 MHz and 600 MHz instruments equipped with a range of MAS solid state probes. In addition, there are four wide-bore NMR spectrometers between 300 MHz and 600 MHz, equipped for cryogenic MAS, microimaging and DNP experiments.

University of Southampton supercomputing facilities are among the best in the country – Iridis3 and Iridis4 clusters have, between them, over 2000 nodes equipped with Intel Nehalem CPUs and over 50 TB of aggregate memory. Dedicated NVidia and Intel Xeon Phi compute nodes are available, as are high-memory nodes equipped with 256 GB of RAM. Iridis4 in particular is the most powerful academic supercomputer in England, the second largest academic computational facility in the UK (behind the National Facility), in Top 15 academic computational facilities in Europe and in Top 30 academic computational facilities in the world.