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Electrochemical properties of Metal Oxide Epitaxial Catalysts – EC+MEC
The production of H2 is one of the promising solutions to store sustainable energy. H2 is considered as an excellent source of clean energy for the future. Its production through water splitting (WS) using renewable energy power (solar, wind etc.) is an efficient CO2-free process. Its conversion bac
Parity violation in chiral molecules – PVCM
The objective of the PVCM proposal is to make the first observation of parity violation (PV) in chiral molecules. Although the weak nuclear force is known to violate parity, its effects have never been observed in molecular systems. It is expected to cause a minute difference in energy levels betwee
Listening for magnetic monopoles: magnetic excitations in spin ice and the fluctuation-dissipation relation – ListenMonopoles
The main objective of this project is to give a new approach of the magnetic frustated system known as ”spin-ice” through magnetic noise measurements, in order to probe the motion of magnetic monopoles, which are the magnetic excitations emerging from the spin-ice manifold. Indeed, at very low temp
Optical Pinning of Molecules for the Study of Glass Transition – COMET
Understanding the true nature of the glass state remains one of the most challenging problems in condensed matter physics. Although we use glasses in a multitude of applications, at present it is not even clear whether or not a glass is just an amorphous structure with relaxation times that are so l
Controlling Open Quantum Systems: A challenge for future quantum technologies – COQS
The goal of this project is to identify the extent to which the environment of a quantum system can be actively utilized for coherent control by tailored external electric fields. The ability to manipulate quantum systems is an essential requirement for future applications of quantum technologies, a
Quantum Information Processing with Spin Ensembles – QIPSE
Quantum computing, with tremendous computing power due to quantum parallelism, has the potential to revolutionize the information technology. Practical quantum computing requires precise initialization, storage, control, readout, and transfer of quantum states. Various candidate systems have promisi
Quantum Phase Slips in NanoWires – QPSNanoWires
The celebrated Josephson junction is so far the only known non-linear non-dissipative electronic component. These key properties place it at the heart of essentially all superconducting electronic devices: SQUIDS magnetometers, Josephson Volt standards but also the recently developed quantum informa
Phonon heat transport in semiconductors containing mesoscale nano-inclusions – MESOPHON
The core of the project is the understanding of the fundamental processes occurring when a phonon of a given wavelength is scattered by a mesoscale-object having a size comparable to the phonon wavelength. This problem, which appears to be a classic case of electromagnetic wave physics known as the
Hawking Radiation in the Lab – HARALAB
We propose to study the radiation emitted by analogue black holes in two different systems: in a water tank, and in an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). In the first case, the radiation consists of surface waves propagating against the flow, whereas in the second one, sound waves (phonons) prop
Grain (Interfaces) Boundaries: Behavior and Segregation – GiBBS
The majority of solid materials are polycrystals, i.e. a collection of single crystals joined by a 3D network of internal interfaces called grain boundaries (GBs). These extended defects have a structure and composition different from the ones of the adjacent grains. This impacts not only the mecha
Fluctuation Interactions between Soft Interfaces in Complex Systems – FISICS
Statistical physics tells us that when a system’s dimensions are reduced, to the order of the correlation length (ksi) of its compositional fluctuations, its free energy shows finite size effects. Manifestations of these effects are for instance the critical Casimir effect (where the large fluctuati
EXperimental SQUEEZing for optomechanics – ExSqueez
Optical interferometry now allows for extreme displacement sensitivity, often only limited by quantum noise: quantum shot noise and/or quantum radiation pressure noise (QRPN, a macroscopic version of quantum back-action), which utimately leads to the standard quantum limit (SQL), the smallest displa
Hydrodynamic transport and dispersion of bacterial suspensions : from the micro-hydrodynamic scale up to porous media – BacFlow
For a long time, bacteria have been considered as passive colloidal particles assumed to have no influence on the flow beside a viscous loss increasing with concentration. It is now proven that the swimming properties of microorganisms and the interactions between individuals – the cause of collecti
Superfluid dynamics of a low dimensional quantum gas in a ring trap – SuperRing
The aim of this project is the study of superfluidity, angular momentum transfer and phase-slips in ring-trapped quantum gases of ultracold atoms. We will develop a quantum simulator capable of answering questions related to condensed matter phenomena, in particular to the physics of superconducting
Turbulent Hydrodynamics experiments in High Energy Desnity Plasmas – TurbOHEDP
The physics of compressible turbulence in High Energy Density (HED) laser plasmas is an unchartered experimental area. Simulations of compressible and radiative flows relevant for astrophysics rely mainly on subscale parameters. In this project, we plan to explore turbulent hydrodynamics plasma both
Cavity quantum electrodynamics with Carbon Nanotubes – NC2
Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have emerged as original light emitters that trigger both fundamental and technological investigations due to intriguing properties : a large choice of bandgaps covering the telecom bands, low-cost production, extremely robust excitons leading to room temperature emission wit
New correlated electroic states emerging from strong spin-orbit coupling : the case of iridates – SOCRATE
The last decade in solid state physics has been marked by the rediscovery of spin-orbit coupling (SOC) in different fields. So far, most examples occur in conventional semiconductors, e.g. Bi2Te3 in the field of topological insulators or GaAs in spintronic applications. SOC is a general feature of h
SUPERionic, symmetric and ionic states in ICES mixtures (H2O, NH3 and CH4) under extreme conditions – SUPER-ICES
This project aims at investigating the mixtures of water, ammonia and methane ices over a wide range of pressure (1-100 GPa) and temperature (100-2000 K). Such mixtures are ubiquitous in the Universe and are present under extreme conditions of pressure and temperature inside giant icy planets (Neptu
Critical States in Confined Superconductors: From Mesoscopic Phenomena to Microscopic Understanding – SUPERSTRIPES
The present project addresses fundamental issues in condensed matter physics related to the study of the microscopic parameters affecting the global and local quantum phase coherence of disordered low-dimensional superconductors. In ultrathin superconductors, the quantum condensate suffers from
Short-Time Dynamics and Electron-Lattice Interactions in Iron Based Superconductors – IRONIC
The scientific goals of the proposal are the following. (i) We note that, while there have been several interesting experimental breakthroughs in the use of pump-probe technique to study these systems, theoretically this area is currently not as well-developed. One aim will be to advance our theoret
Spin Physics in Out-of-Equilibrium Superconductors – SPINOES
Contrary to received wisdom, conventional superconductors out-of equilibrium (NECSs) can be good ferromagnets and also excellent spin-dependent thermoelectric materials, and the superconducting wavefunction can be composed of spin-aligned pairs of electrons. My recent experiments demonstrating out
The physics of multicellular organization in bacteria – BactPhys
We propose a novel approach to study bacterial multicellular organization based on physical mechanisms in order to identify the minimum elements of biochemical regulation required to coordinate complex processes such as bacterial clustering, stream formation, and fruiting body formation. This is a m
tOwards Bose-Einstein Liquid with Indirect eXcitons – OBELIX
This research proposal aims at exploring the quantum states of matter that can be realised in semiconductors. Particularly, we address Bose-Einstein condensation which constitutes a milestone in the quest for exotic collective quantum states. This ambitious goal will be pursued by employing unique p
Hyperspectral management of the photon orbital angular momentum – HYPERPHORB
The project HYPERPHORB aims at developing a toolbox that allows tailoring the photon orbital angular momentum over broad spectral range with enhanced photonic functionalities. To date, the hyperspectral management of orbital angular momentum of light is not accessible to state-of-the-art optical dev
Control of Ionization of Molecules on Both Attosecond and Ångström Dimensions – CIMBAAD
In CIMBAAD, we propose to explore a new and promising research direction opened by attosecond science, namely the study of molecular photoionization at “ultimate” attosecond timescale and Ångström lengthscale. Our purpose is to investigate how the electronic excitation initiating the photoionization