Emmanuel Maisonhaute, professor at Sorbonne University, is an electrochemist specializing in ultrafast electron transfer mechanisms in molecular systems.
What are the best memories of your scientific career?
I remember walking for 3 hours in an Oxford park wondering how to interpret my experimental cavitation results, until a bolt of lightning (“Eureka!”) enabled me to devise a new physicochemical model that answered my questions. I do research for those (rare, alas) moments. More recently, I experienced a fantastic human adventure of teaching and research in Africa. With colleagues from France and Benin, we created and set up electrochemistry experiments for research and teaching from scratch. I’ve never seen so much dynamism in France compared to that of African students. It’s physically demanding and time-consuming, but it’s at times like these that the profession of teacher-researcher really comes into its own.
What led you to join IPCM?
I’m delighted to be joining the ERMMES team! I’ve been working with Rodrigue Lescouezec for several years, and I’m fascinated by the molecules and nano-objects developed by the team, which have particularly interesting properties for an electrochemist. Being fully integrated into the team rather than working on a collaborative basis will enable me to be better placed to develop new physicochemical approaches to these electrochemically and spectroscopically rich systems. I’ve been here part-time since February, and the benefits of this proximity are already being felt!
What are your short-term scientific projects and long-term dreams?
In the short term, it’s a question of finding a new balance between my various research activities, my teaching activity and various commitments such as setting up the T-CAPES initiative. I’m also going to train in molecular magnetism so as to be relevant to the measurements and theoretical analyses I intend to set up with my new colleagues. However, I’m not giving up on sub-peak Raman spectroscopy, which is technically very difficult to implement, but which provides structural as well as chemical and mechanistic information on the nanometer scale.
In the long term, why not propose new concepts aimed at detecting electron transfers or magnetization shifts on the scale of a single molecule!
Biography
Since the beginning of his career, Emmanuel has been involved in the development of original electrochemical instrumentation. During his thesis, he developed a device enabling electrochemical measurements on the nanosecond scale. His aim was to gain access to extremely rapid electron transfer kinetics. To achieve this, he designed specific micrometric electrodes, known as ultramicroelectrodes, whose distinctive feature is very low response times. He also developed high-bandwidth electronics dedicated to these measurements.
His post-doctorate at Oxford was devoted to the rapid electrochemical measurement of the movement of bubbles created by ultrasound (known as acoustic cavitation). In electroanalysis, these bubbles clean the surface (like the ultrasonic baths we usually use) and accelerate mass transfer, providing greater sensitivity, but their mechanism of action was unknown. He then used his ultramicroelectrodes to understand the physicochemistry of this hitherto unknown process.
On his return to France as an ATER and then senior lecturer at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in the ENS PASTEUR laboratory, he became interested in electroactive systems grafted onto electrodes, adding local probe microscopy to supplement the electrochemical information classically obtained. In 2010, he joined LISE on the Jussieu campus, where he developed new methodologies in local Raman spectroscopy. This approach provides chemical information (sometimes local) on the composition or transformation under potential of molecular or inorganic systems, with a view to better understanding the mechanisms of electrocatalysis.
More recently, he has begun to explore a new way of communicating his passion for electrochemical instrumentation by producing short videos accessible on the net, gathered in a channel entitled “Le courant passe” hosted on the SCF website. His scientific career has also led him to develop various low-cost electrochemical set-ups for teaching and research, targeting in particular those countries which do not have the resources to irrigate the world of research…