.Up to 3 PhD positions available within the FLIGHT fellowshipICFO offers PhD-fellowship positions in Industrial Track to well-qualified graduate students, who wish to obtain a doctoral degree in cutting-edge research fields of ICFO.The positions are offered in the scope of the FLIGHT Program, a MCSA-COFUND doctoral program explicitly focused on intersectoral research training in collaboration with Industrial Partners.Our PhD Fellowship Program welcomes applications from individuals with a degree in a field of mathematics, science or engineering related to the ICFO research activities.Selected PhD candidates will join the Industrial PhD Track, developing projects in close collaboration with industrial partners. Fellows will undertake secondments of 6–18 months at the partner organizations, ensuring full immersion in both academic and industrial settings throughout their fellowship.Research Projects AvailableThe following projects are open for this call:IT008: How do crops avoid photodamage under the sun?Objective: The project aims to investigate how crop species and varieties balance the use of sunlight for growth while minimizing the risk of photodamage. The research will involve applying state-of-the-art biochemical and spectroscopic techniques to study photoprotection mechanisms across diverse crop species and varieties.Candidate Requirements:Recent graduate with a degree in Biology, Biotechnology or Chemistry with experience with protein purification or protein biochemistry.Experience with research on plants or photosynthetic organisms considered a plus.Experience in spectroscopic characterization is desirable.Familiarity with ultrafast spectroscopy will be considered an advantage.Strong motivation and interest in the research area.IT009: FPGA-Based Hardware Acceleration for Post-Quantum Cryptography (PQC) and Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) EmulationSupervisors: Prof. Dr. Valerio Pruneri (ICFO) and Dr. Pau Gomez Kabelka (LuxQuanta)Objective: Develop FPGA-based PQC codes to strengthen the classical communication channels of LuxQuanta's QKD transceivers portfolio.Candidate Requirements:Master's degree in Physics, Telecommunication, Computer Science, Electronics, or related fields.Master's thesis in Experimental Quantum Physics or High-Performance Computing.Programming expertise in Python and C.Hands-on experience with hardware programming, e.G., microcontrollers (Arduino), Microprocessors (Raspberry Pi).Strong interest in FPGA and proficiency in programming RTL languages (e.G., Verilog, VHDL).Strong English communication skills (spoken and written).IT010: Development of Applications and Devices Based on Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs)Supervisors: Prof. Dr. Valerio Pruneri (ICFO) and Dr. Norbert Kerwien (ZEISS)Objective: Collaborate on the design, fabrication, and characterization of applications and devices that incorporate photonic integrated circuits (PICs)