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CEMES overview by Jean-Pierre LAUNAY, directeur.

Founded in 1957 by Prof. G. Dupouy, this laboratory, world pioneer in Electron microscopy, became the CEMES in 1989 (history).

In CEMES, we study materials from an experimental and a theoretical point of view, from the atomic up to the macroscopic scale. CEMES encompasses an important activity in elaboration, chemical synthesis, realisation of new devices and instrumentation.

The CEMES goals are for one part to establish links between the atomic architecture and the physical and chemical properties of a material or a nano-material and for another part to design, synthesise and study the first prototypes of molecular nano-machines, studied one at a time.

Of course, the CEMES experimental means cope with the challenge of study matter from nano-materials to nanoscale sciences: last generation of electron transmission microscopes, fabrication of UHV near-field microscopes (STM, AFM, SNOM), X-ray diffractometers. They allow to probe matter down to the atomic scale, to manipulate atoms and molecules and to start to study the quantum control of molecules.

The CEMES commitments are both fundamental and applied: induce, understand and model phenomena from atomic scale to materials in relation with the major present industrial domains (aeronautics, electronics, chemistry)

The CEMES is strongly engaged towards the future, towards new frontiers of sciences and technologies like new materials and miniature machines in the realm of nanosciences, nano-materials and nanotechnologies. Those fascinating areas point out the possibilities offered by structuring matter atom by atom, reaching more efficient materials or establishing the future of nano-machines.

The laboratory gathers four teams, indicated below, each one being involved in a number of research operations.

History

The CEMES, an autonomous CNRS Laboratory (UPR 8011), was created in 1989 and belongs primarily to the CNRS Physical Institute. It is the successor of the Laboratoire d'Optique Electronique (LOE), founded in 1957 by Professor Gaston Dupouy, Membre de l'Institut.

Originally, the laboratory owed its international renown to its avant-garde instruments in the area of very high-voltage electron microscopy.

The first microscope ever to operate at an accelerating voltage above one million volts (1.5 MV) was constructed here in 1958. It was housed in a metal sphere 25 m in diameter, known as La Boule¹, and was in continuous operation until 1990.

The HT Generator
of the 1.5 MV Microscope

Thanks to the experience acquired in high-voltage technology, a second microscope operating at voltages as high as 3 MV was successfully built and came into operation in 1970. A parallepipedal building 24 m high, known as Le Briquet (cigarette-lighter) was built to contain it. Until 1995, this was the only microscope in the world that really did operate at voltages of 3 MV or more.

The column of the 3 MV Microscope

Today, the CEMES is a pluridisciplinary establishment for fundamental research, in which physicists and chemists study problems associated with the solid state. Some 160 research personnel, technical and administrative staff work in five research buildings, situated in a park of 12 acres close to the city centre of Toulouse and to a university campus.

Since 1989, the laboratory extended its activities towards the elaboration of different types of materials and their structural characterization. It is also involved in the study of subtle processes occuring at a very small scale such as plasticity and deformation under a mechanical stress. Finally, in the last years, it has developed researches in nanomaterials and nanosciences.

The laboratory has administrative links with the Université Paul Sabatier (UPS), the Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA) and the Ecole des Mines d'Albi-Carmaux (EMAC).