Description of the thesis topic

A recent spectroscopic technique reported in March 2019 enables the direct imaging of orbitals. The measurement is based on Non- resonant Inelastic X-ray Scattering (NIXS) This new kind of imaging opens up a wide and completely new field of investigations, in particular for strongly correlated electron materials where small changes of electronic structure generate remarkable properties (heavy fermions, superconductivity , Mott metal-insulator transitions etc…). this PhD project combines state-of-the-art theoretical and experimental techniques (DMFT, NIXS), in order to establish a new way of observing the electronic and magnetic properties of quantum materials, while developing more possibilities in terms of sample environment (temperature, pressure, electric/magnetic field...).

Work Context

The Laboratoire de Physique des Solides (LPS) is a joint research unit (UMR 8502) of the University of Paris-Saclay and the CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research). It is affiliated with the CNRS Institute of Physics and the 28th section of the National Council of Universities. LPS is a member of the Friedel-Jacquinot Federation, a coordinating structure for physics research on the Moulon Plateau in Orsay (Île-de-France).

The laboratory brings together around one hundred researchers and teacher-researchers, both experimentalists and theorists. The research activity is supported by about sixty engineers, technicians, and administrative staff.

Each year, the laboratory hosts a large number of undergraduate and graduate students, including many PhD candidates, as well as postdoctoral researchers and visiting scientists. The laboratory covers a wider variety of topics than its name might suggest, aiming to address the full diversity of condensed matter physics. Research activities are organized around three main areas, each involving approximately the same number of scientists:

New electronic states of matter
Physical phenomena at reduced dimensions
Soft matter and the physics-biology interface
The first area includes both experimental and theoretical studies related to the properties of systems in which electronic correlations are generally strong, leading to remarkable properties and unconventional electronic states such as superconductivity, magnetism, metal-insulator transitions, etc.

The second area covers activities related to “nanoscience” in the broad sense. These are approached from the perspective of fundamental properties, particularly when the dimensions of an object become as small as certain characteristic lengths (coherence length, mean free path, etc.).

The third area extends the concept of "soft matter" to biological systems. Topics include complex systems, living tissues, liquid crystals, foams, polymers, and granular systems. These physical studies are at the intersection of physical chemistry and biology.

The research work will be conducted within the MATRIX team of the Laboratoire de Physique des Solides (CNRS-UMR 8502). This research project is supported by the Graduate School and Soleil synchrotron.

Constraints and risks

None