Present activities in nanothermal physics:

Thermo-opto-electronics: There are quite a few tools to measure the thermal properties of individual nano-objects and especially its dynamics. Our team has demonstrated how to determine the temperature by field emission of a nanotube or nanowire when disturbed by electric currents or by laser irradiation and their response times to these stimuli. We aim to explore the thermal phenomena in nanotubes and nanowires with our original approaches.

Thermomechanics : We are currently developing an all optical method to measure the average temperature of nanocantilevers from the thermal vibrations of the transverse fundamental mode. Thereafter, we will focus on the phenomena of thermal self-oscillations in carbon nanotubes. Indeed, a preliminary theoretical study allowed us to establish that in these structures, a negative differential resistance regime could lead to the onset of thermal instability and solitons which could then be used to develop new devices.

Thermofluidics :Under the framework of the ANR project "Nanosurf" we participate in the study of boiling phenomena from nanostructured surfaces. Indeed it appears that the presence of surface nanostructuringbrought to high temperature delayed the onset of boiling fluid in contacts with the surface. This effect still poorly understood is crucial for applications related to cooling of electronic components.