This prize rewards the methodological and instrumental developments he leads in the field of TEM with remarkable success which gives him international visibility.
He investigated in the development of an original electron source with cold field emission (C-FEG) using carbon nano-cones synthesized in the group of Marc Monthioux at CEMES. This first success in the development of a new cold source allowed him to familiarize himself with the important instrumental constraints due to the high voltage coupled to the ultra-vacuum of C-FEG sources. His expertise in this field allowed him to tackle another project, jointly with Arnaud Arbouet of the NeO group, which aimed at the construction of the first coherent TEM with pulsed femtosecond source allowing to perform experiments resolved in time in pump-probe mode.
The skills and quality of F. Houdellier’s instrumental developments have gone beyond the borders of Europe. In particular, he was the 2019 winner of the prestigious "Ernst Ruska" prize from the German microscopy society. In addition, the company HHT wished to create a joint laboratory with the CEMES-CNRS lab, whose objective is to carry out the technology transfer from the prototype of ultrafast TEM on alatest generation instrument of HHT installed at CEMES.