Postdoctoral SMIS beamline

Located on the Paris-Saclay plateau, about 20 kilometers from the capital, the SOLEIL synchrotron is one of France's leading research facilities. Since it began operating in 2008, it has served the national and international scientific communities. Research conducted at SOLEIL covers a wide range of scientific and industrial fields — including physics, biology, chemistry, materials science, environmental science, Earth sciences, and cultural and natural heritage — all connected to current societal challenges. Experiments carried out on the beamlines rely on the use of synchrotron light emitted by electrons accelerated to nearly the speed of light within a storage ring. SOLEIL is jointly supervised by the CNRS and the CEA and offers its staff a dynamic, innovative, multidisciplinary, and international working environment.

At the forefront of technology, SOLEIL II is an ambitious project designed to provide new opportunities for scientific and industrial research. SOLEIL II consists of a major upgrade of the existing infrastructure and aims to significantly improve the performance of electron accelerators and beamlines. It is designed to address major current and future societal challenges, particularly in areas such as advanced materials research, energy and sustainable development, health and well-being, and the environment.

Construction work on the SOLEIL II project began in 2024, marking the start of a phase of development and technological innovation. In parallel, the existing facility will remain operational until the fall of 2028. SOLEIL II is scheduled to start operations in 2030, with a gradual ramp-up phase continuing until 2035.

Context and Missions

The postdoctoral fellow will participate in the beamline's missions under the supervision of Christophe Sandt and in collaboration with Hélène Bertrand (full professor, Département de chimie de l’ENS-PSL / CNRS / Sorbonne Université).

The 2-year postdoctoral position is funded by ANR under ‘POPCORN’ project.

The postdoctoral fellow will participate in the research project ‘Dual Organometallic Platforms with Advanced Optical Imaging for Enhanced Anti-Inflammatory Therapies’ (POPCORN). The project aims to design new carbon monoxide releasing molecules (CORMs) with reduced-toxicity to be used as anti-inflammatory agents.

The postdoctoral fellow will work with the PhD student recruited for the POPCORN project and in collaboration with Gabriel David and Antonella Najjar from SOLEIL microfluidic laboratory.

The main goal of the postdoctoral position is to experimentally develop and refine a microfluidic device compatible with IR microspectroscopy to be used to measure living, fully-hydrated cells. The microfluidic device will be used in conjugation with the synchrotron source to follow CO release kinetics from living cells treated with the newly developed CORMs. An existing in-house developed microfluidic device is available at SMIS. The project aims to further refine the device to improve its reliability and usability, and to allow for measurement of longer kinetics. The candidates will eventually be able to develop other research projects.

The candidate will assist the beamline team in helping the external user teams (setting of the beamline, installation of the sample environment, support to the users during their experiment time).

The candidate will help with infrared microspectroscopy data analysis.

Profile

The candidate should have a PhD degree, or equivalent qualification, in analytical chemistry, chemistry, materials science, cell biology or in a related discipline.

The candidate should have strong experimental skills, including data processing.

The candidate should demonstrate:

• expertise in microfluidics,
• expertise in microscopy,
• expertise in spectroscopy,
• expertise in data analysis.

Training in cell biology or eukaryotic cell cultivation methods, programming skills, and expertise in microfluidic dedicated to IR spectroscopy will be considered strong advantages.

The candidate must be fluent in French or English.

Working Conditions

This is a 2-years position.

Assistance to users imposes some on-call duty periods and may require, in case of need, on-site interventions outside regular working hours.

Benefits :

• 26 days of paid vacation + up to 2 additional split days + 23 RTT (reduction of working time) days per full year of work, based on a 40-hour work week.
• Mandatory health insurance (basic plan) costs €19.35 per month for the employee (with an employer contribution of €174.15, corresponding to 90% of the premium), covering household members (spouse/partner + children).
• We also offer an optional supplementary health plan for €26.69 per month covering your household (spouse/partner + children).
• Access to a provident scheme that supplements the benefits of the mandatory French Social Security system, which are often insufficient. It compensates for loss of income in case of inability to work, ensuring the standard of living of the insured and their family in difficult circumstances: death, incapacity for work, or disability resulting from illness or accident.
• Possibility to open a Time Savings Account (CET) after one year of seniority.
• On-site corporate catering at SOLEIL, with subsidized meals.
• Family-related benefits depending on individual situations: family allowance supplement, additional days off under certain circumstances, marriage and birth bonuses, etc.
• Social and cultural activities offered by SOLEIL’s Social and Economic Committee (CSE).