Les débuts du laboratoire Pierre-Aigrain

We describe the birth and growth of the Solid State laboratory at “École normale supérieure”, Paris. The director of the Physics Department, Yves Rocard, understood the importance of semiconductors for the future of electronics and recruited a young Frenchman, Pierre Aigrain, who had just received a PhD from Carnegie Tech. The first domains explored proved to be very important for future applications: optical properties, transport properties, new semiconductor compounds. Later new fields were developed such as superconductors, tunnel effect spectroscopy, turbulence and chaos in hydrodynamics, properties of superfluid and solid 4He. The laboratory had strong relationships with industry and many members of the lab contributed to the development of solid-state physics and technologies in private companies and government research centers, and also to the creation of a European manufacturer of silicon integrated circuits.
Source: Comptes Rendus Physique - Category: Physics Source Type: research