Publications

Improving the photogeneration and the lifetime of charge carriers associated with light harvesting is among the main challenges facing materials for photocatalysis. We report here the synthesis of mesoporous TiO₂ containing a replica of a chiral nematic structure (CNS) as a photocatalyst with improved light harvesting and photogenerated charge carriers under UV illumination. The CNS of cellulose nanocrystal photonic films, obtained by an evaporation-induced self-assembly method, were successfully transferred into an inorganic TiO₂ film by sol–gel mineralization of the biotemplate.

Enhanced photogenerated charge carriers and photocatalytic activity of biotemplated mesoporous TiO2 films with a chiral nematic structure, American Chemical Society

Nanopore electrical approach is a breakthrough in single molecular level detection of particles as small  as  ions,  and  complex  as  biomolecules.

This  technique  can  be  used  for  molecule  analysis, and characterization as well as for the understanding of confined medium dynamics in chemical or biological reactions.

Altogether, the information obtained from these kinds of experiments will allow to address challenges in a variety of biological fields. The sensing, design and manufacture ofnanopores is crucial to obtain these objectives.

Aerolysin, a powerful protein sensor for fundamentalstudies and development of upcoming applications, HAL Archives 2019

The discovery of more-efficient and stable water adsorbents for adsorption-driven chillers for cooling applications remains a challenge due to the low working capacity of water sorption, high regeneration temperature, low energy efficiency under given operating conditions and the toxicity risk of harmful working fluids for the state-of-the-art sorbents. Here we report the water-sorption properties of a porous zirconium carboxylate metal–organic framework, MIP-200, which features S-shaped sorption isotherms, a high water uptake of 0.39 g g⁻¹ below P/P₀ = 0.25, facile regeneration and stable cycling, and most importantly a notably high coefficient of performance of 0.78 for refrigeration at a low driving temperature (below 70 °C).

A Robust Energy-Efficient Metal-Organic Framework Adsorbent for Refrigeration, Nature Energy 2018

The confined dynamics of water molecules inside a pore involves an intermittence between adsorption steps near the interface and surface diffusion and excursions in the pore network.

Depending on the strength of the interaction in the layer(s) close to the surface and the dynamical confinement of the distal bulk liquid, exchange dynamics can vary significantly. The average time spent in the surface proximal region (also called the adsorption layer) between a first entry and a consecutive exit allows estimating the level of ‘nanowettablity’ of water. As shown in several seminal works, NMRD is an efficient experimental method to follow such intermittent dynamics close to an interface.

Probing interfacial dynamics of water in confined nanoporous systems by NMRD, Tandfonline 2018

There are still unmet needs in finding new technologies for biomedical diagnostic and industrial applications. A technology allowing the analysis of size and sequence of short peptide molecules of only few molecular copies is still challenging. The fast, low-cost and label-free single-molecule nanopore technology could be an alternative for addressing these critical issues.

Identification of single amino acid differences in uniformly charged homopolymeric peptides with aerolysin nanopore, Nature Communications 2018