Valérie Brien, Pierre-Yves Jouan, Mireille Richard-Plouet, Pierre-Louis Martin [2021-2024]

This activity aims at developing and optimizing new compounds as thin films exhibiting specific photocatalytic properties, that is antibacterial, in order to fight against hospital diseases. The films of Al-X-N-O composition are elaborated by magnetron sputtering, a deposition technique very common in industry. It allows one to control the nature, the nanostructuration and the morphology of the films via the plasma parameters.
The synthesis and the structural, chemical, morphological or surface characterizations are achieved at IMN. The antibacterial properties and mechanisms are studied at another CNRS lab : Laboratoire de Chimie Physique et Microbiologie pour les Matériaux et l'Environnement, LCPME (Nancy). The stability of phases and the electronic structure are evaluated by DFT calculation in Thessaloniki University (Greece). These simulations bring us elements to progress on the understanding of properties.

Keywords:  nitride, photocatalytic, antibacterial, TEM
Expertises: Morphological and chemical characterization of thin films, Transmission Electron Microscopy, Correlations between physico-chemical features of thin films and macroscopic properties
Collaborations :  LCPME (Nancy), IJL (Nancy), Synchrotron Soleil (Saclay), Université de Strathclyde (Ecosse, Royaume Uni), EPFL (Suisse), Synchrotron Diamond (Oxford Royaume Uni), Université de Thessalonique (Grèce).

Marie-Paule Besland,Antoine Goullet, Agnès Granier, Maryline Le Granvalet, Clément Maheu [2023, ->],Mireille Richard-Plouet ,Invited researcher: Dayu Li [2018-2019] , Post-doctoral researcher :Florian Chabanais [2022-2024]

PhDs :   William Ravisy (2021),Stéphane Elisabeth (2015)

Our expertise in the PECVD process (low pressure inductively coupled RF plasma) for depositing thin layers from organometallic precursors has enabled us to optimize the process in order to synthesize at low temperature, on polymers, photo -catalytic TiO₂ thin films by applying RF power in pulsed mode. High-resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM) analyses revealed the columnar morphology of the thin films, completely crystallized in anatase form in continuous mode (T = 130 ° C) and crystallized only at the surface of the film in pulsed mode (T <80 ° C).
Recently, thin films of metal substituted anatase TiO₂ (Nb⁵⁺, W^5+/6+) have been obtained by injecting an organometallic precursor of the dopant. Their photo-catalytic properties in the visible and transparent conductive oxide are under study (ANR PATIO project in collaboration with LIST in Luxembourg, W. Ravisy PhD).

Keywords           nanomaterials, thin films, desalloying, flexible electronics, sensors
Expertises          PECVD, Analyse de surface XPS, MET, Ellipsométrie
Collaborations   LIST (Luxembourg) CHiPS, Université de Mons (Belgique)