Interview: Pascale Bayle-Guillemaud, Deputy Director, Irig

The French government has selected four Irig joint research units to receive Equipex grants. What does this mean for Irig?

Our success rate has never been higher. We really have done exceptionally well. The grants will finance equipment that is crucial to programs in Irig’s key research areas. Investments will include the beamlines at ESRF, cryomicroscopy equipment, and materials for spintronics research.

Being awarded four of the grants underscores our position in the national scientific community. And it means that we have an obligation to work for the national scientific community through broader platforms and set national ambitions and not just local ones.

But magnetic materials are a local specialty, aren’t they? With Spintec driving advances?

Of course Grenoble is a center for magnetic materials. But our future pilot line, which will make materials for academic research in spintronics, will be built at the PTA (upstream technology platform), one of five major centers in the national Renatech network. We will also purchase instrumentation for 2D magnetic materials and heterostructures as part of a national cluster.

The “French” beamlines at ESRF and IBS will also benefit from the grants, right?

The five lines at ESRF that we operate in a CRG* with CNRS will get upgraded optics and computing resources. With the EBS project, we now have the brightest light source in the world. So, upgrading the associated optics and computing was not something that could wait. Last, for our biology research, IBS will get a state-of-the-art electron cryomicroscope as part of a national research infrastructure called FRISBI.

Contact: pascale.bayle-guillemaud@cea.fr

*Collaborative Research Group