Since the famous words of Feynman in his "Plenty of Room at the Bottom" lecture, the field of physics of solids and materials has widened its areas of competance, on the one hand towards nanostructured materials, and on the other towards 'soft' materials, and in particular the interface with biology. In parallel with this, the more traditional field of strongly correlated systems still provides large and rich areas for study and exploration, with many new and spectacular effects to discover.
Our team, the PMN (Physics of materials and nanostructures), consisting of physicists and solid state and materials chemists, has also partially followed this same evolution. For this reason our research activities are grouped around the three following themes:
1. A core theme of 'nanostructures and nanocomposites', within which we cover synthesis and production of nanostructures (nanowires, nanoparticles), their treatment (isolating individual nanoobjects, nanocomposites, ...), theoretical and experimental study of their structural and physical properties, and their eventual applications (transparent electrodes, special artificial glasses, OLEDs, ...). Development and application of new techniques dedicated to the study of nano objects is also a key part of our work.
2. A new emerging theme of 'nano-bio-systems', within which we attempt to understand and study the properties of bio-systems with nanometric structure, as well as synthesis of hybrid nano-bio-systems. Once again it is necessary to develop new analysis tools adapted to such systems.
3. A specific theme, "Advanced materials with non-conventional electronic properties" which is concerned with synthesis and study of complex materials which possess interesting electronic properties, such as, for example, metal-insulator transitions induced by an electrical field.
Our tools include optical and vibrational spectroscopy, electrical transport measurements, electron microscopy, and atomic force microscopy (see equipment page). A key part of our work concerns computer modelling of nanoscale materials. We also develop new tools adapted for specific problems.
Alongside their research, members of our team are also involved in teaching of both physics and chemistry of materials and nanostructures at:
- The Science and Technology Faculty at the University of Nantes (Physics Department)
- The Ecole Polytechnique at the University of Nantes (Materials Department)
- The IUT at Nantes (Science and Application of Materials Department)
as well as at other institutions outside Nantes. In particular we are strongly involved in the Masters programme MR2M2.
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