Laboratory

The Laboratory for Innovative Key Materials and Structures-LINK (IRL 3629), located at NIMS, is a CNRS international Research Laboratory created on January 1st 2014, for 5 years, in agreement between Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), National institute for Materials Science (NIMS) and Saint-Gobain (SG). This UMI has been directed by Dr. Mari Kono (SG) from 01/01/2014 to 31/12/2015, Dr. Fabien Grasset (CNRS) from 01/01/2016 to 31/12/2019 and by Dr. David Berthebaud (CNRS) since 01/01/2020. It has been renewed for 5 more years (2019-2023) as a part of the newly created NIMS Saint-Gobain CNRS International Collaboration Center directed by Pr. Naoki Ohashi (NIMS).

The main missions of LINK consist of 4:
– Setting up joint basic research projects with researchers of multicultural background,
– Reinforcing relationship between French-Japanese academic and industrial communities,
– Ensuring education and support career development for young researchers,
– Create a path for basic science to social benefit through industrialization.
LINK should act as “catalyst” and our ability to build a sustainable project and work together across borders and cultures should be considered as equally important as pure academic outputs.

The research activities focus on functional nanocomposites (for energy and environmental applications) and thermoelectric materials, as a part of the basic science covered by CNRS, NIMS and Saint-Gobain on micro-nanotechnology innovations for the construction industry, with environmental and/or energy applications targets:


• New material and function
• New processes
• Energy efficiency

Our research focus on the synthesis, processing and characterizations of functional materials involving oxides and non-oxides compounds for industrial applications. The potential of this class of new materials is explored in the fields of thermoelectricity, catalysis and optical applications.

The main objective is the elaboration of model materials comprising the optimization of experimental processing procedure and an accurate characterization of physical and chemical properties in order to establish the correlations between physicochemical characteristics and potential applications.