Research mission and strategy
The motivation for our research is both to discover new physical and chemical properties for enhanced fundamental understanding of materials and to reinforce our capacity to answer effectively demands for various applications (energy, micro/nanotechnology, biotechnology).
For this, we are interested in a wide range of materials: in terms of its chemical nature (oxide- nitride- carbide- organic-or metallic-materials), its shape (thin films, single crystals, nano-particles, ceramics) and physical properties (semiconductor, photo-catalytic/-hydrophilic, optic, magnetic, ferroelectric ...).

• The first objective of our group is to obtain a fundamental understanding of the processes that occur during sample growth and to apply this understanding to the prediction and control of sample morphology and perfection, its chemical and physical properties, nano-structure, functionalities etc.

• The second objective of our group is to develop and apply original approaches for the characterisation and fundamental understanding of materials with a specific emphasis on (i) optical techniques [birefringence, UV/visible/IR spectroscopy and Raman phonon scattering], (ii) near-field-microscopy [AFM, KPFM etc.], (iv) synchrotron experiments and (iv) modelling of process and physical phenomena

Our research is organized along four research lines :

• Crystal growth of wide bandgap semiconductors
  
• Wet Chemistry and Surface Functionalization
  
• Phase transitions of functional materials
  
• Solids and nano-materials at extreme conditions

Collaborations
The group's research involves many aspects of physics, chemistry, and crystallography and the group has thus a large number of active academic and industrial collaborations ranging from the local/regional to the national level and to intense contacts world-wide.

Funding
The group is very successful in raising support from both academic funding agencies (ANR, Europe, Region ...) and industrial partners (Arcelor, Schneider, NOVASiC, ACERDE ...)