Summer Research Assistant Position

APPLICATION DEADLINE:  Friday February 7th, 2025

Location: The internship will be held at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), Kingston, Ontario, in the laboratory of Professor Sabat in the Department of Physics and Space Science. For more information about the research group and the lab, please visit the following link http://www.sabatresearchgroup.ca .

Dates: First week of May until mid-August 2025 (16 weeks).

Nature of the organization: The Royal Military College of Canada is one of two federal universities in Canada. All undergraduate students at RMC are military officers in training, while graduate students can be civilians (without any connection to the Canadian Armed Forces) or military officers. Most of the professors at RMC are civilians and have university research programs funded by various organizations such as NSERC.

Functions of the trainee: The Research Assistant will conduct experimental research in the laboratory of Professor Sabat. They will be trained to operate research equipment in optics and photonics. They will use lasers to inscribe photonic nanostructures, microstructures and metasurfaces in photomechanical thin films and study their physical properties. They will prepare test samples utilizing specialized scientific equipment, such as spin coaters, glovebox chamber, metal layer sputter coater and evaporator, surface profiler, high-powered lasers, atomic force microscope, spectrometers, LabView programs, photodetectors and lock-in amplifiers, etc... The research goal is to conduct in-depth studies on the photomechanical effect (light activated mechanical motion) in azobenzene materials, and on the generation, propagation and enhancement of surface plasmon resonance at metal/dielectric interfaces. The fabricated plasmonic metasurfaces will be used as biosensors, imagers and possibly in thin-film organic solar cells. Finally, the Research Assistant will put their research data clearly in Excel, participate in weekly research group meetings and write a summary report at the end of the internship.

Work environment: This is a good opportunity for a student to work in a research group that produces several publications every year. There is a good chance that the trainee will be a coauthor on a scientific paper if the research is successful.

Specific requirements: The Research Assistant will be paid a $6,000 scholarship from the NSERC USRA program that the student can earn. In addition, Prof. Sabat will pay an extra $2,000. Therefore, the total amount for the duration of the internship is $8,000 given as stipends (nontaxed).

There are several NSERC USRA Scholarships available at RMC for this summer for undergraduate students at Canadian Universities (only one or two positions in Prof. Sabat’s group). The higher the student's grades are, the higher the chances that they will get this scholarship. In past summers, every student chosen by Professor Sabat for this internship has won the NSERC USRA Scholarship.

Preference will be given to students studying in Physics or in Engineering Physics, however, Prof. Sabat will accept applications from outstanding students in Electrical Engineering or Biotechnological Engineering.

Visible and gendered minorities, women, persons with disabilities, as well as indigenous peoples, are encouraged to self-identify. Only Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada are eligible to apply.

Please email Prof. Sabat { sabat@rmc.ca } with your C.V. and unofficial transcript. Please contact Prof. Sabat if you have any questions.