Research

Gas interactions with surfaces are at the heart of my research activities. Ubiquitous in Nature and in Technologies, these microscopic events can be described by a combination of short dynamical steps (lasting typically a few picoseconds) competing kinetically on a range of timescale from a few milliseconds to several days (depending on the observation setup).

As an experimental scientist, I develop apparatuses that can inform about the dynamics and kinetics of systems that are of broad interest. My favorite topics are Plasma Surface Interactions (PSI), functionalization of 2D materials and heterogeneous catalysis.

Special care is taken to control the temperature of the surface of materials (from 77 K to 2400 K) by using a combination of liquid nitrogen cooling and of radiative or laser heating. The chemical type and the kinetic energy of the impinging gases is selected thanks to radical, ionic and supersonic molecular sources that all-together span an energy range from 40 meV to 5 keV.

Used setups maintain an ultra-high vacuum (10^-10 atm) to prepare samples of a material with a well-defined crystalline structure and a controlled chemical composition. To check our samples, we use electron diffraction (LEED) and electron-based spectroscopies (AES, HREELS, XPS).

Reaction kinetics are not only studied at the surface, but also in the near-surface and the bulk of materials. My current interest is to decipher surface effects from bulk phenomenology in Plasma Surface Interactions, especially for nuclear fusion reactors (such as ITER).

Funded projects are thus mostly related to Plasma Surface Interactions. Here the list of these projects:
– DALTON project: ANR grant
– WHeSCI project: A*MIDEX and ANR grants
– AMMONIA project: ITER contract
– WHISCI project: A*MIDEX grant

Teaching

I am involved both at Bachelor and Master levels in several curricula, such as the preparatory cycle of the engineering school Polytech, the master “Instrumentation, Measurement and Metrology” and the master “Fundamental Physics”.

The following list summarizes my current responsibilities in the Faculty’s curriculum:

• Co-coordinator of the 1st year (M1) of the Master “Instrumentation, Measurement and Metrology”
• Responsible of the Teaching Unit “Physics 2 – Newtonian Physics 2 and Electricity” in the Preparatory Cycle of Polytech Marseille

Short Curriculum Vitae

Since 2010: Associate Professor at AMU (Aix-Marseille Université, FR) – Department of Physics – PIIM laboratory

2005 – 2010: Postdoctoral fellow at EPFL (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH) – LCPM laboratory – GGSD group

2000 – 2004: Doctoral student at X (Ecole Polytechnique, FR) – PICM laboratory

2003 – 2004: Teaching Assistant at Université Paris-Sud (FR) – Department of Physics

2000 – 2003: Teaching Assistant at X (Ecole Polytechnique, FR) – Department of Physics

Publication list

The complete list is available on Web of Science

A selection of recent publications is shown below:
Surface oxygen versus native oxide on tungsten: contrasting effects on deuterium retention and release, A. Dunand et al., Nucl. Fusion 62 (2022) 054002
Deuterium and helium outgassing following plasma discharges in WEST, R. Bisson et al., Nucl. Mater. Energy 26 100885 (2021)
Sticking Probability of Ammonia Molecules on Tungsten and 316L Stainless Steel Surfaces, M. Minissale et al., J. Phys. Chem. C 124 17566 (2020)
The temperature dependence of optical properties of tungsten in the visible and near-infrared domains, M. Minissale et al., J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 50 455601 (2017)
Retention and release of hydrogen isotopes in tungsten plasma-facing components, E.A. Hodille et al., Nucl. Fusion 57 076019 (2017)
Hydrogenated graphene on Ir(111): A high-resolution electron energy loss spectroscopy study of the vibrational spectrum, L. Kyhl et al., Phys. Rev. B 93 115403 (2016)