News :

The fifth annual GIANT International Internship Program (GIIP), which kicked off at the end of May and will continue for 10 weeks, saw record enrollment. GIANT laboratories are hosting 27 international interns, from undergrad through to post-doc, almost all from the United States. In contrast, in 2011, GIIP’s first year, there were only seven interns. […] >>

“What is understood completely can be expressed clearly, and the words to express it come easily.”* Easier said than done! INAC organized a public speaking workshop on May 19 that was attended by ten PhD candidates. Trainer Ludovic Lecordier gave the participants the skills they need to express themselves clearly and to feel more comfortable […] >>

A team of researchers from Leti, INAC, and ESRF combined X-ray tomography and Laue microdiffraction to determine the crystallographic orientation of micrometric grains. The technique, used in this case on 80-micron-thick copper vias, also indicates the area of deformation in the silicon matrix that surrounds the vias. Laue microdiffraction is very effective on thin films, […] >>

The Nanocharacterization Platform’s heating cell can be used to measure the properties of materials between –80°C and 600°C under controlled atmospheres. And, when coupled with ellipsometers, the thickness and the optical index of thin films can also be measured. Alternatively, Raman spectrometers can be added to study materials’ crystalline properties. Temperature measurements are particularly useful […] >>

A LED can potentially run for 50,000 hours. Unfortunately, the necessary AC/DC convertor limits LED lifespans to 5,000 hours, due to the convertor’s trouble withstanding high temperatures. Plus, the converters are bulky and expensive. Leti has now developed an electronic control block without inductance or capacitance, dedicated to lamps made up of at least 100 […] >>