Chair of Excellence

LANEF Chair of Excellence Call 2021

The program Chairs of Excellence aims to attract in Grenoble talented researchers to develop a research project in one of the LANEF laboratories addressing challenges in Quantum Materials, Nanophysics & Quantum Engineering, New Frontiers in Cryogenics, Sensor for Life Science & Healthcare, or Electrical Energy. The Chairs of Excellence involves senior scientists with part time employment in Grenoble; the contract duration is about 9 months which will be split over three years. The award package includes a whole salary, travel expenses, financial support for hiring a PhD student or a post-doctoral fellow as well as additional funds for operating costs to reinforce the successful candidate’s research activities.

In the LANEF Call 2021, four new Chairs of Excellence have been selected and funded :

BOTANA Antia from Arizona State University (USA) : NICOS - Nickelate superconductors The project of Antia Botana from Arizona State University is promoting new local synergies in the context of quantum materials by establishing a new international collaboration between her university and a Grenoble consortium leaded by the theoretician Andres Cano (NEEL Institute) in close direct contact with all the participants of the project both experimentalists (LNCMI, NEEL-MRS, NEEL-MagSup) and theoreticians (IRIG-MEM-L_Sim and CEA-LITEN). The ambition of the project is to :
i) develop further the theory of the new superconducting nickelates
ii) provide theoretical support for the local experimental investigations on these systems
iii) perform theoretical predictions of new nickel-based materials that can be experimentally realized, thereby promoting a new local synergy between theory and chemistry in the realm of quantum materials.
NYGARD Jesper from Copenhagen University (Denmark) : HYMAT - Hybrid materials for quantum devices The LANEF Chair of Excellence project "HYMAT" of Prof. Jesper Nygard (Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen) in collaboration with Néel Institute and the lab IRIG-Pheliqs fits perfectly into the vigorous field of hybrid nanostructures and semiconductor-superconductor nanowires. It represents a strong commitment from the LANEF teams, and from the applicant who is a world leader in the field of hybrid growth methods, nanotechnology and quantum transport. The applications in quantum technology, new types of qubits and topological systems are timely and promising.
OTANI Yoshichika from Tokyo University (Japan) : QSPIN - Quantum spinconversion functionalities in magnon - phonon coupled systems The LANEF Chair of Excellence QSPIN project of Professor YoshiChika Otani (University of Tokyo) aims to study and exploit magnon-phonon coupling for coherent information transport in collaboration with Olivier Klein (IRIG-SPINTEC) and Benjamin Pigeau (NEEL). The theme is topical and of great importance in spintronics. Yoshichika Otani is an internationally recognized specialist in spintronic phenomena, including spin-charge interconversion. In the longer term, he is paving the way for ambitious studies on strong magnon-phonon coupling beneficial for future quantum information technologies.
TAUFOUR Valentin from University of California-Davis (USA) : SyDcoM - Symmetry guided discovery of topological materials The Chair project of Valentin Taufour (University of California-Davis) in collaboration with Elise Pachoud of the Néel Institute and Gérard Lapertot of the IRIG-Pheliqs team aims at developing new methods for the synthesis of single crystals of materials with remarkable topological characteristics of interest to a large community of scientists within LANEF. He also proposes to implement an original strategy based on recent advances in Artificial Intelligence and Neural Networks, to discover which materials would be likely to exhibit such properties, based on the analysis of large databases of parent compounds.
The project is currently recruiting a PhD student.
Update : the call for applications for the PhD position is closed.

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LANEF Chair of Excellence Call 2021

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