DICO Group presentation

The Dynamique et Interactions en phase COndensée(DICO) group forms a Joint Research Team with CY (Cergy Paris Université), bringing together staff from LIDYL and LPMS to study the responses of matter in solid, liquid and interface form when subjected to light excitation over a very wide wavelength range, and more generally to ionizing radiation.

The processes observed take place on ultra-short time scales, ranging from the optical cycle (attosecond – 10-18s) to scales typical of radical chemistry (μm-ms).

At present, the group comprises 6 researchers, 3 teacher-researchers, 1 engineer and 1 technician, to whom trainees from L3 to M2, doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows from all horizons regularly come for training and to take part in experiments.

For the fundamental research projects in which we participate or which we set up, we use numerous spectroscopic techniques, most of which rely on the use of laser sources available at LIDYL (such as those on the Attolab, UHI100 and Nanolight platforms), but also other collaborative beams (synchrotrons, cyclotrons, etc.), outside the laboratory, in France and abroad.

DICO is home to the NanoLight platforms (enabling the

DICO is home to the NanoLight (harmonic generation in crystals, VUV metrology) and FLUME (fluorescence spectroscopy on femtosecond and picosecond time scales) platforms, as well as a nanosecond transient absorption flash photolysis experiment. A chemistry preparation laboratory completes these platforms, while remaining close by.

The specificity of this group is to benefit from LIDYL’s 2 major platforms, ATTOLab and UHI100, which enable us to work on highly original subjects, at the frontier between physics and chemistry and between physical chemistry and biology, drawing in particular on our interactions with other CEA and Université Paris Saclay laboratories.

Gérard BALDACCHINO
Head of DICO Group