Jean-Pierre BUCHER

Jean-Pierre BUCHER is Professor of Physics at the University of Strasbourg and Senior Member of the Institut Universitaire de France. He obtained his doctorate at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) for his spin-echo-NMR study of the quantum size effects of metallic nanoclusters. In 1989, he was awarded a two-year “advanced research grant” from the Swiss National Fund to pursue research on molecular beams at the University of Virginia (USA). There he developed a Stern-Gerlach deflection experiment for the study of magnetic clusters based on pulsed laser vaporization and time-of-flight mass spectrometry. J.P. Bucher observed for the first-time superparamagnetic relaxation in free cobalt clusters as well as the appearance of magnetic magic numbers in rare earth clusters of a few atoms. As an invited scientist at KFA-Jülich (1991), he developed scanning tunneling microscopy for the study of adsorbates on surfaces. In 1992, he spent 2 years as a researcher at EPFL, exploring new ways of nano-structuring surfaces, first work on self-assembled structures.

In 1994, he was appointed full professor at Université Louis Pasteur and led a research team at IPCMS. His research activities focus on molecular nanosciences, with the main objective of deepening knowledge of multifunctional behaviors. With his colleagues he measured several unique characteristics such as the spin state of an isolated molecule. J.P. Bucher has developed new spectroscopic approaches for both molecular beams and local probes. He has coordinated several national and international projects, notably as head of the French node of the European Community's MAGMANet network of excellence. He has been responsible for the European Single Molecule Detection instrumental platform (European Institute of Molecular Magnetism, EIMM) since 2008. He was director of the Doctoral School of Physics and Physical-Chemistry (2009-2017). He is the author of 150 scientific articles in international journals and has been an invited professor at various universities including Ruhr Universität Bochum, University of Nagoya, University of Kyoto, University of Virginia.