The PhD thesis, funded by the CNRS, will be carried out within the framework of the CARMEN Joint Research Laboratory (CAractérisation des Matériaux pour les Energies Nouvelles) and will primarily involve the IPCMS (Institute of Physics and Chemistry of Materials of Strasbourg) and the LCMCP (Laboratory of Condensed Matter Chemistry of Paris).
The main research location will be the IPCMS, a joint research unit of the CNRS and the University of Strasbourg. The successful candidate will join the “Nanomaterials and Electron Microscopy” team within the “Surfaces and Interfaces” department, as well as the associated experimental platform. The team's expertise lies in the investigation of materials and physicochemical systems using, in particular, in situ approaches under both gaseous and liquid environments, as well as three-dimensional reconstruction by electron tomography. The experimental platform is equipped with in situ sample holders for electron microscopy, enabling experiments to be performed under both gas and liquid environments, as well as three electron microscopes: a JEOL 2100, a JEOL 2100F, and a JEOL Grand ARM2. The PhD candidate will also work in close collaboration with the other partners of the CARMEN Joint Research Laboratory, in particular the LCMCP and IFP Energies Nouvelles, whose research focuses on the thermochemical properties of these compounds.
IPCMS is located on the Cronenbourg campus in Strasbourg, approximately 20 minutes from the city center by public transport (Bus G line), and has a university restaurant available to staff working in the research laboratories.
The duration of the PhD project is 36 months.

The aim of this PhD project is to investigate the formation and structural transformations of multimetallic materials with potential applications in thermal energy storage through the cycling of endothermic and exothermic chemical reactions. However, current materials suffer from the irreversibility of the reactions involved, which hinders their large-scale application for industrial decarbonization. Improving energy density and reversibility requires a better understanding of these phase transformations, and in particular of the role played by crystal defects. In this project, we will focus on layered double hydroxides (LDHs), which are promising materials owing to the wide diversity of their compositions and their ability to reconstruct following thermal dehydration. Multicationic systems, in particular, offer the possibility of finely tuning thermal properties and phase diagrams through their chemical composition and potential entropic effects, thereby leading to unprecedented properties for thermal energy storage.
The materials will be synthesized using mild, low-energy and environmentally friendly chemical methods, combined with innovative flash thermal treatments to obtain the corresponding oxides. The materials will be characterized using advanced techniques, with a particular focus on in situ electron microscopy. This will require the development of new analytical approaches to minimize the influence of electron irradiation on these sensitive materials and on their transformations. These ex situ and in situ structural and chemical analyses will be carried out using the state-of-the-art electron microscopy facilities available at the IPCMS. New data-processing protocols based on artificial intelligence will be developed to enable analyses with high spatial and temporal resolution.
The microscopy data will be combined with high-temporal-resolution bulk measurements (XAS, Raman spectroscopy, XRD), with particular emphasis on pair distribution function (PDF) analysis. Machine learning approaches will be used to support these analyses and provide a detailed description of crystal defects, atomic disorder, and their evolution during thermal treatments and cycling.