News

June 2026

Our group recently attended the "Forum des Microscopies à Sonde Locale". A massive congratulations to Chantal Hareau D'Alessandro for winning the Best Presentation Award! This is a fantastic recognition of her hard work and the excellence of her research. 🎉

April 2026

It is always a great satisfaction to see one's research highlighted on the cover of an international scientific journal. I have been fortunate enough to experience this several times during my career. But this visual holds a very special significance...

It was chosen to illustrate the cover of the annual report 𝗨𝗻𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲́𝗲 𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗰 𝗖𝗡𝗥𝗦 𝗣𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 (A Year with CNRS Physics 2025).

Why does this publication mean so much to me? Because the CNRS is my employer. It is the institution that supports my daily research. Knowing that our image was selected to visually represent the excellence and dynamism of the entire CNRS Physics community over the past year is a tremendous honor.

This visual illustrates the coupling between a rare-earth ion-doped nanoparticle and a plasmonic wave, a topic at the core of our research in nano-optics.

I highly encourage you to browse through this document, which retraces the highlights, discoveries, and major challenges of the institute for 2025:

👉 https://www.inp.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/une-annee-avec-cnrs-physique-2025

A huge thank you to CNRS Physique for highlighting our work!

November 2025

Thanks to a 'Tan Chin Tuan' award, I will be spending two one-month periods (November and January) at NTU as a visiting professor, hosted by Prashant Kumar. I am extremely happy to be here and eager to begin this new collaboration together.

September 2025

Congratulations to Benoît Reynier for his masterful thesis defense. Very impressive results and a great researcher in the making!!

June 2025

✨ Thrilled to share that our recent work on controlling the magnetism of light has been highlighted by CNRS Physique!

In this study, published in Light: Science & Applications, we demonstrate for the first time that it's possible to control the magnetic field of light at the nanoscale using plasmons.

A huge congratulations to the entire team and a big thank you to our partners at Institut de Chimie et des Matériaux Paris Est (ICMPE) and Institut Langevin for this fruitful collaboration.

➡️ Discover the CNRS Physique highlight on our work here: Link

January 2025

As part of the FemtoMagnet European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant, and after installing the NV-center AFM from QZabre LLC, we’ve added the second stage of our new setup this week: a Chameleon Discovery femtosecond laser from Coherent ! This laser delivers pulses of about 100 fs and covers wavelengths 🌈 ranging from 330 nm to 1320 nm, thanks to its frequency doubler. Can't wait to try it all out! 🤩

January 2025

As part of the FemtoMagnet European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant, we had the pleasure of welcoming a cutting-edge setup from QZabre LLC to our lab.

This state-of-the-art near-field microscope 🔬, powered by quantum technologies, will enable us to characterize the magnetization 🧲 of our plasmonic nanostructures with unparalleled precision, using diamond 💎 tips equipped with a single NV center.

A huge thank you to Andrea and his exceptional team for their hard work and dedication 💪🏼. We’re thrilled to begin exploring the incredible possibilities this system opens up for our research! 🚀

Mai 2024

Congratulations to Chantal Hareau on her thesis grant! 👏👏 

Starting in October, Chantal will be working on optically induced magnetic fields. 

November 2023

Our paper on the generation of superchiral light nanosources in achiral nanostructures, tunable in wavelength and polarization, is featured on the cover of ACS Photonics.

September 2023

Our article describing a new type of optical antenna behaving like a magnetic monopole is featured on the cover of ACS Photonics.

July 2023

The European Research Council is funding us for a project to manipulate, at ultrafast timescale and at the nanoscale, magnetic domains through the inverse Faraday effect using inversely designed plasmonic structures.

July 2023

Our paper, describing a nanosource of light to monitor the diffusion of biomolecules on the cell membrane, is on the cover of Small.

March 2023

Congratulations to Benoît Reynier for the audience award on his NanoPitch at the Cnano conference explaining the coupling between magnetic light and matter in a poetic and didactic way

January 2023

Congratulations to Xingyu Yang and co-authors for the publication of our paper in Nanophotonics on the generation of an inverse Faraday effect by linear polarization in a plasmonic nanostructure

June 2022

Small Barbecue to celebrate the end of the academic year and the two thesis grants obtained by Homero and Obren!

Congratulations to both of them, and thank you all for this beautiful year that has just passed.

December 2021

Our paper demonstrating the generation of ultrafast and intense pulses of stationary  magnetic fields at the nanoscale has been accepted and is on the cover of ACS Nano 

April 2021

We welcome Ye Mou, a new Master student that will work on Tesla range static magnetic fields  generated by light

February 2021

We welcome Benoit Reynier, a new Master student that will work on magnetic light and matter coupling

January 2021

The french agency of research (ANR) is granting us a project to optically induce Tesla range magnetic field. An opened PhD position is available on this project. 

December 2020

We welcome Lingfei Cui, a new PhD student that will work on chiral light and chiral matter coupling

November 2020

We welcome Éric Charron, a research engineer that will work with us on our different projects.

October 2020

We welcome Xingyu Yang, a new PhD student that will work on magnetic light and matter coupling

July 2020

The National Physics Institute (INP) of France is funding us on a new and exciting project to generate a strong static magnetic field out of light

Mai 2020

Our paper demonstrating the direct modulation of energy transfer between quantum emitters using a photonic nano-antenna has been published in Nanophotonics

October 2019

Congratulation to Cyrine Ernandes who defended a thesis this month.

These 3 years seem to have flown by .

We wish her good luck for her next adventure at the C2N

Mai 2019

Our paper using an evolutionary algorithm to design optical nanostructures has been been chosen as Back Cover in Advanced Optical Materials 

March 2019

Our paper using an evolutionary algorithm to design optical nanostructures has been published in Advanced Optical Materials 

September 2018

Our study on photonic nanoantennas to boost the 'magnetic light' and matter interactions, published in Nanoletters, has been highlighted by the French National Institute of Physics (INP) of the CNRS.

INP Communication

August 2018

Congratulation to Cyrine again for her Poster award at the international NFO conference

July 2018

Congratulation to Cyrine for her Poster award at the international Gold conference

April 2026

It is always a great satisfaction to see one's research highlighted on the cover of an international scientific journal. I have been fortunate enough to experience this several times during my career. But this visual holds a very special significance...

It was chosen to illustrate the cover of the annual report 𝗨𝗻𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲́𝗲 𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗰 𝗖𝗡𝗥𝗦 𝗣𝗵𝘆𝘀𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟱 (A Year with CNRS Physics 2025).

Why does this publication mean so much to me? Because the CNRS is my employer. It is the institution that supports my daily research. Knowing that our image was selected to visually represent the excellence and dynamism of the entire CNRS Physics community over the past year is a tremendous honor.

This visual illustrates the coupling between a rare-earth ion-doped nanoparticle and a plasmonic wave, a topic at the core of our research in nano-optics.

I highly encourage you to browse through this document, which retraces the highlights, discoveries, and major challenges of the institute for 2025:

👉 https://www.inp.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/une-annee-avec-cnrs-physique-2025

A huge thank you to CNRS Physique for highlighting our work!