The mission of the Max-Planck-Institut für Nachhaltige Materialien is to develop and understand advanced materials for a more sustainable world. Its scientists investigate how the structure of materials determines their properties and how this knowledge can be used to design more efficient, durable, and environmentally friendly technologies. This requires scale bridging materials characterization, for which we strongly employ a large pool of different electron microscopy techniques. We work interdisciplinary, with intense mutual stimulation among experimentalists and theoreticians as well as among different groups and departments. The institute offers a

Group Leader position in Advanced Transmission Electron Microscopy

to start on 1st October 2026.

The group leader position is located in the department Structure and Nanomechanics of Materials (Prof Dehm). Understanding materials at the atomic level is a prerequisite to establish fundamental correlations between structure, imperfections and materials properties. The research activities of the position revolve around the application and development of advanced scanning/transmission electron microscopy (S/TEM) techniques to study the evolution of the nanostructure and local chemistry. The institute is equipped with state-of-the-art S/TEM instruments including 2 aberration corrected Titan Themis, conventional S/TEMs, FIBs, several in-situ TEM holders (heating, cooling, biasing, straining, electrochemistry), energy dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX), electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS), a direct electron detector, 4D STEM capabilities and fast cameras for dynamic studies.

Your role:

You will perform with your team cutting-edge research in the field of advanced S/TEM applied to materials science/physics/chemistry. This includes operating a research group, designing research projects, acquiring funding, overlooking the infrastructure and implementing newest developments. Your role involves providing expertise and supervision of PhD students, postdocs and guest scientists in advanced S/TEM methods and for analyses of complex data sets.

Your profile:

You hold a PhD degree and performed a postdoc in Material Science, Physics, or a related field combined with experience in aberration corrected S/TEM methods. Ideally, you have also gained experience in at least one of the following fields: analytical S/TEM, in-situ S/TEM methods, 4D STEM, tomography, image processing algorithms. You like to work with a team on challenging scientific problems. The working language at our institute is English.

What we offer:

We offer an exciting, collaborative, and dynamic research environment. The position is classified according to pay group TVÖD 13-15 for a duration of up to 6 years depending on your previous employments.

Your Application:

Please submit your CV, publication list (mark up your three most important papers), copies of MSc and PhD certificates, references, and a 1 page research plan. Deadline is August 31st 2026.

The Max-Planck-Institut für Nachhaltige Materialien GmbH is committed to employing more handicapped individuals and especially encourages them to apply. The Max Planck Society strives for gender and diversity equality. We welcome applications from all backgrounds.

Contact Person:

Prof. Dr. Gerhard Dehm