Senior Thin Film Scientist – Eindhoven

Role description

You will own the product-market fit strategy for a deep-tech startup building a next-generation deposition platform for semiconductor thin films. You will work on connecting thin-film deposition technology to existing and future use cases in the semiconductor industry.

You will be responsible for defining which materials, films, and applications to focus on for pilot applications of the deposition platform. You will build the materials characterization pipeline needed to support pilot and fab qualification of the deposited thin films. You will also work closely with the CTO, mechanical engineers, and plasma process engineers to drive full-system architecture decisions by using your materials science knowledge to correlate deposited film properties back to plasma and process conditions.

This position is in an early-stage startup environment. You should be ready for ambiguity, tight schedules, shifting priorities, rapid iteration, working directly alongside the CTO, and assuming wider responsibility for decisions that shape the final product-market fit.

Visa: Visa sponsorship is available

Equity: ESOP available, will be discussed individually

Work arrangement: 4 days on-site, 1 day hybrid

Work location: Eindhoven (High Tech Campus)

Salary range: €85k to €115k gross per year

Responsibilities

• Connect the core thin-film deposition technology to semiconductor use cases.
• Own the thin-film development roadmap across existing advanced semiconductor applications.
• Identify the main bottlenecks in the semiconductor industry and the required materials innovations in the next 5-7 years.
• Define and drive the material KPIs that matter for each film: composition, density, stress, uniformity, defects, electrical, thermal, etc.
• Own the full thin-film characterization pipeline: select the correct metrology, design characterization experiments, interpret results, and feed them back into process decisions.
• Manage external metrology partnerships and build internal metrology capability over time (ellipsometry, AFM, XPS, XRR, XRD, SEM, TEM, TOF-SIMS, electrical test, thermal test)
• Partner closely with the Plasma Process Engineers and the CTO to map plasma conditions to the resulting thin-film properties.
• Contribute to the IP strategy around materials and deposition processes.

Main requirements

• PhD in materials science, applied physics, chemistry, or a related field (or MSc with an equivalent 5+years industrial track record).
• 3+ years of non-academic research on materials for commercial chip stack (substrates, FEOL, MOL, BEOL, packaging).
• Knowledge of semiconductor industry materials roadmap for the next 5-7 years.
• Deep understanding of thin-film physics: nucleation and growth, microstructure, stress, defects, stoichiometry, and how these parameters are impacted by the deposition process.
• Fluent English

Other requirements

• Hands-on experience with PVD
• Hands-on experience with thin-film characterization metrology: ellipsometry, AFM, XPS, XRR, XRD, SEM, TEM, TOF-SIMS, electrical properties, thermal properties.
• Experience running multivariable DOE and statistical analysis on process data.

Nice to have, but not mandatory

• Experience with ion-beam sputter deposition (IBSD) or ion-beam-assisted deposition (IBAD/DIBAD)
• Experience with CVD, ALD, and PLD
• Experience with ultra-low-k dielectrics or advanced metals for next-generation interconnects.
• Experience with advanced telecommunication materials.
• Experience with advanced chip heat-spreader and heat-sink materials.

Benefits

• Support with relocation to Eindhoven (within reason)