Senior Thin-film Materials Engineer (inorganic)

• Develop and optimize a-Si:H and evaluate alternative photoconductive materials, together with dielectric layers and multilayers based on SiNₓ, SiO₂, Al₂O₃, and related materials.
• Cleanroom process development, design of experiments, process transfer, or work with external fabrication partners
• Please let us know in your application if you specifically have experience with one or several of the following:
• Large-area uniformity, thick-film deposition, and transfer of recipes between research and industrial tools

About Rivercell

Join Rivercell, an ambitious biotech startup, as a Senior Thin-film Materials Engineer. You will develop and optimize the inorganic material stack at the core of our platform, working closely with an interdisciplinary team. This role offers a competitive salary, equity package, and exciting opportunities for personal and professional growth.

Responsibilities

• Translate chip-level requirements into specifications for conductivity, ON/OFF ratio, spectral response, capacitance, leakage, breakdown strength, optical transmission, stress, uniformity, and lifetime.
• Optimize photoconductor properties including dark and illuminated conductivity, response time, absorption, defect density, hydrogen incorporation, thickness, stress, and long-term stability.
• You understand how material properties, interfaces, process conditions, and electrical fields interact at device level.
• Electrical, optical, and structural characterization of multilayer thin-film devices
• Integration of multilayer stacks in microelectronic, photovoltaic, display, MEMS, sensor, or optoelectronic devices

Requirements

• You have a PhD in materials science, applied physics, semiconductor engineering, electrical engineering, microelectronics, or a related field.
• You have 5+ years of relevant experience developing semiconductor and/or dielectric thin films, including hands-on deposition, characterization, and process optimization.
• You combine scientific curiosity with an engineering mindset focused on reproducibility, specifications, reliability, and practical execution.
• You are autonomous, committed, enthusiastic, and comfortable working with a can-do, creative, and challenging mindset.
• You are rigorous in experiment design, documentation, data interpretation, and communication of uncertainty.
• You have excellent communication skills and are fluent in English; professional proficiency in French is helpful but not required.
• You have previous experience in one or more of the following areas:
• PECVD, ALD, sputtering, PVD, or related thin-film deposition processes
• Amorphous semiconductors, dielectric materials, defect states, carrier transport, charge injection, and charge trapping
• FTIR, ellipsometry, impedance spectroscopy, C–V, leakage-current, breakdown, or bias-stress measurements
• Charge-trapping, dielectric ageing, breakdown statistics, or lifetime modelling

Preferred

• Hydrogenated amorphous silicon, TFTs, thin-film photovoltaics, image sensors, photodetectors, or related devices
• SiNₓ, SiO₂, Al₂O₃, oxide–nitride multilayers, or high-field dielectric reliability