PhD. studies

Doctoral study programmes at the UCT Prague are carried out in a full-time form or a combination of full-time and distance learning, always on the basis of an individually scheduled study plan and checking study duties. The standard lenght of a doctoral study programme is four years according to current accreditation of the study program.

The University accepts PhD students on a rolling basis throughout the calendar year; it is essential when making your application for doctoral studies that you find an advisor who will guide you through the entire period of your PhD studies. 

Available dissertation themes

Analysis of batch-to-glass conversion process

The goal of this project targets the analysis of one of the critical batch-to-glass conversion processes – the evolution and collapse of the primary foam at the batch-melt interface. This porous foam layer, which behaves as a form of insulation layer, results from the products of various gas evolving reactions that are being trapped in the primary melt. This project will focus on understanding the foam morphology, the reactions that lead to primary foaming, such as iron redox equilibrium, oxygen release from the melt, or residual de-carbonization reactions.

Supervisor: Richard Pokorný, PhD., Supervisor specialist: Assoc.Prof. Jaroslav Kloužek

Melting processes in vitrification technologies

The analysis of the processes during the vitrification process is performed using a mathematical model. Input data of the model will be obtained by a set of experimental methods including high temperature monitoring of melting processes, analysis of released gases, thermal analysis and determination of oxidative reduction equilibrium in melts.

Supervisor: Assoc.Prof. Jaroslav Kloužek, Supervisor specialist: Richard Pokorný, PhD.

Modeling new spaces for glass melting

Particles in molten glass such as grains of sand or bubbles are subjected to dissolution and separation in the glass melting process, their behaviour is also influenced by the melt flow characteristic. The work will deal with both processes in the flow model space in order to find out the optimal conditions of both processes, to find a new way of conducting the melting process of the glass and to provide data for new designs of melting spaces. The work will use the results of laboratory measurements as well as mathematical modelling.

Supervisor: Marcela Jebavá, PhD., Supervisor specialist: Prof. Lubomír Němec

Heavy metal oxide glasses

The glass network of heavy metal oxide glasses is formed by oxides such as TeO₂, GeO₂ or Sb₂O₃ instead of SiO₂. These glasses stand out in comparison with conventional glasses particularly by wide interval of transparency ranging up to much longer wavelengths, lower phonon energies, higher refractive index, outstanding nonlinear properties, high solubility of rare-earth ions accompanied by high quantum yield of radiative transition etc. The work will focus on the preparation and characterization of new materials – glasses – containing antimony and/or bismuth oxides. Characterization of the prepared materials will include their basic properties such as density, molar volume, thermal stability, chemical resistance, hardness, optical transmission, refractive index, etc. Correlation between structural units forming the glass network and the resulting properties will be investigated and the influence of processing conditions during glass preparation on these properties will be evaluated.

Supervisor: Petr Kostka, PhD.