The CRP – Gabriel Lippmann (CRP-GL) is a public establishment in Luxembourg devoted to applied scientific research and technological development, as well as technology transfer and permanent high-level training. Research work is carried out by more than 200 researchers within 3 departments.
One of these departments, Science and Analysis of Materials (SAM), is dedicated to science and analysis of materials and has been funded in 1992. It is now involving 70 researchers and is composed of fundamental and applied research facilities as well as an analytical services laboratory. It provides assistance to more than 100 industrial and academic partners worldwide in their technological research and development, with regard to materials and surfaces R&D.
The department is organized in 4 research areas: Characterisation of materials, surfaces and interfaces, Development of innovative surface treatments, Elaboration of nano-objets and nanostructured materials and Design and development of new instrumentations and new equipment for the fields of materials analysis and surface treatment.
CRP – Gabriel Lippmann will merge with CRP – Henri Tudor beginning of 2015 to form the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) with more than 600 employees. Departments and groups will be reorganized at this occasion. The future Department of Materials will involve more than 150 researchers.
The MC2 project involves staff from two research groups, Surface treatment (UTS) and Analyses of Materials (UAM).
Role in the project: CRP-GL will deposit AlTiXN (X=Ta, Si, Cr, etc) coatings with a dcMS or HiPIMS process by using both circular and rectangular targets. Plasma characterization by time- and space-resolved optical emission spectroscopy (OES) associated to electrical characterization will be carried out in order to correlate plasma physico-chemistry to coating characteristics. In situ stress measurements with the kSA multibeam optical sensor will allow a better understanding of stress evolution and growth mechanisms. Coatings from consortium will be mainly characterized by TEM, SEM, XPS, XRD and SIMS in order to get access to their composition, microstructure and morphology. Oxidation tests will be carried out in high temperature (HT) furnaces and with in-situ HT XRD. Oxidized coatings will be characterized by low-energy SIMS, TEM and SEM. Isotopic studies by SIMS involving the tracing of 18O used during oxidation will allow a better understanding of oxidation mechanisms. HT wear tests will be carried out on the coatings. TEM, SEM, MicroRaman and SIMS will be used to characterize the wear track and ball counterpart.
Involved staff:
- David DUDAY, researcher at “Surface Treatment Unit” (UTS) in the Department SAM, is coordinating the activities at CRP for MC2 project and is WP-leader of WP3 for MC2 project. He is performing coating deposition, in situ stress measurement and plasma diagnostics.
- Patrick CHOQUET, head of UTS of the SAM department, has an expert function in the project regarding deposition of coatings and is responsible for the reporting to funding agency, FNR
- Jean-Baptiste CHEMIN, engineer in the UTS group, is performing deposition, in situ stress measurement and XRD, SEM and tribological characterization of coatings
- Nathalie Valle, researcherin UAM group, is performing SIMS analyses.
- Brahime el Adib, engineer in UAM group, is performing oxidation tests and SIMS analyses.
- Jérôme Guillot, researcherin UAM group, is performing XPS analyses.