Antoine Barbier

Background

About Antoine Barbier

Dr. Antoine Barbier is an “expert senior” scientist and research director at CEA/DRF/IRAMIS/SPEC where he is a specialist in the field of synchrotron radiation studies. He holds a PhD in Solid State Physics (1993) and a "Habilitation à diriger les recherches"(HDR) from university of Strasbourg (2003). With a strong background in surface physics/chemistry and magnetic thin films, he joined CEA/Grenoble in 1994 and was involved in the construction and functioning of an ultrahigh vacuum surface X-ray diffraction instrument located at the ESRF. He thoroughly studied single crystalline oxide surfaces and metal/oxide interfaces by surface hard X-ray techniques (diffraction and scattering) and in particular unraveled the structures stabilizing rock salt structured polar surfaces with respect to their chemical environment. He realized pioneering magnetic surface hard X-ray diffraction experiments on antiferromagnetic and studied the magnetic exchange coupling arising after deposition of a ferromagnetic metal. His research interests moved to magnetic oxides surfaces and thin films and he joined the oxide group at CEA/Saclay in 2003. There he started the study of epitaxial thin oxide films, deposited by oxygen plasma assisted molecular beam epitaxy, on conducting substrates, enabling the use of a larger panel of synchrotron radiation techniques like as e.g. electron spectroscopies and spectomicroscopy. He is an associated scientist with beamline HERMES at synchrotron SOLEIL specialized in spectromicroscopy experiments. Currently, Dr. Antoine Barbier’s researches focus on oxide thin films for spintronics (multiferroics) and solar water-splitting applications.