The Institute of Molecular Sciences of Orsay is a fundamental physics and chemistry-physics research unit created in 2010, under the supervision of the CNRS and Université Paris Saclay. The ISMO’s areas of research range from molecular physics to nanoscience, from the physics and physical chemistry of surfaces to low-dimensional objects, and from molecular physics and physical chemistry to biology. Interfaces are particularly strong with astrophysics, health, energy and nanophotonics. A number of research and development initiatives are also underway.
Created from the merger of three laboratories at Orsay (the Laboratoire de Photophysique Moléculaire – LPPM, the Laboratoire des Collisions Atomiques et Moléculaires – LCAM and the Laboratoire d’Interaction du rayonnement X avec la Matière – LIXAM), ISMO’s activities are based in particular on molecular photophysics: a large part of the light spectrum, from X-rays to millimetres, is used to probe the spectral responses and dynamics induced by the photonic excitation of the systems studied, from attoseconds to long times. Activities are also based on optical imaging, local probe microscopy and processes induced by particle beams. ISMO’s experimental research is based on a wide range of equipment (lasers, spectrometers, multi-channel detectors, electron microscopes and super-resolution optical microscopes, a light line in partnership with SOLEIL, ion or electron beams, etc.). This research is complemented by theoretical activities, which benefit from access to both internal and external computing resources. All the work is generally based on a description involving interaction with light and/or particles.