photographist

“Taking the time to understand is important for a researcher. You have to work in-depth and not get carried away by a system that is always asking you to go faster. I work on the magnetic
properties of materials and am greatly interested by what happens when you look into smaller and smaller dimensions. When a charge is set in motion, its magnetic field results in an attractive or repulsive magnetic force that applies to its surrounding environment.
We work with materials that should be very useful with regard to the magnetic storage of data. Depending on their composition and structure, they have very different properties. These properties can be confined to nanometric sizes and dimensions. I use both magnetic spectroscopy and near-field microscopy equipment to study the properties of these very small objects.

The Saclay nuclear reactor produces neutron beams. A neutron is a neutral particle present in an atom’s nucleus. It has no charge but presents a “magnetic moment”. Magnetic moments are similar to compasses that interact with one another when they come into contact. By observing what happens to these “compasses” after their interaction with the material, we can understand and reconstruct the magnetism of our material. This is one of the experiments performed on one of the Saclay reactor beam lines where we have access once a year to perform our experiments. For four or five days at a time, we live with a nuclear reactor with extraordinary people day and night. I have fond memories of passionate discussions at three in the morning over the noise of these big machines.”

Silvana Mercone
Researching Professor, LSPM, University of Paris 13

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