Quantum and Molecular Photonic Laboratory Team UMR CNRS 8537 - ENS Cachan

In September 2010, the Ecole Centrale Paris created and integrated into its campus a new team attached to the LQPM and the Institut d'Alembert (ENS Cachan) and the CNRS.

Research Themes

Ultra rapid plasmics in metallic nanoparticles

The nanoparticles in precious metals offer remarkable optical properties linked to the phenomenon of plasmic resonance. These properties result from very many on-going developments in the field of plasmics. To understand better the physical processes involved here, it is necessary to study their dynamics following excitation by a luminous impulse. This thematic  therefore relies on the development of methods of modelling adapted to the different time scales involved and on the implementation of ultra-rapid laser spectroscopy techniques.

Photo-induced thermal transfers at small scales of time and space

This concerns the study of the optical generation of heat and its transport at the nanometric scale over short periods of time, where the classic approaches are no longer longer valid.

Nanosources of heat for chemistry and biology

Metallic nanoparticles under luminous radiation have the ability to behave like nanometric heat sources. This conversion process can be used in various fields, in particular for the production of optical, chemical and biological functions. One can thus imagine materials or mechanisms whose action is triggered only by light. We are jointly developing a project aimed at biomedical applications (improvement in targeting cancerous cells using nano-hybrids as an accompanying treatrment with nano-hyperthermia and radiosensitisation).

Light-heat nanoconversion: photonic applications

Thanks to the phenomenon of localised plasmic resonance, it is possible to efficiently and very rapidly inject energy into metallic nano-objects. Because of the succession of exchange mechanisms and releases which follow, the optical properties of the composite environment in which these nanoparticles are dispersed are transiently modified. By using both these photo-induced modifications together with the conditioning of the composite environment in structured mechanisms at the scale of a wavelength (electromagnetic cavity, photonic crystal), one can create photonic functions which are optically controlled.

Fields of application

Use of  metallic nanoparticles in cancer therapy by nano-hypothermia and radiosensitisation. Optimisation of other types of biological applications such as the targeted delivery of active substances, photo-switching in microfluidity, ultra-sensitive molecular sensors, photothermal imaging. Exploitation also of these properties in the field of ultra rapid photonics.