Physics of Complex and Disordered Matter (SoftMat)

Fluids are all around us all the time at all scales. To understand fluid mechanics is to understand the mechanics of what surrounds us: air and water in particular. As such, hydrodynamics is part of the physicist's basic knowledge.

The UE Hydrodynamics is an introduction to incompressible perfect (Euler) and viscous Newtonian (Navier-Stokes) fluid mechanics. The classical flows are presented, as well as the notion of boundary layer, instability and turbulence. Emphasis is placed more on physical ideas than on advanced mathematical or numerical resolution methods.

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English tutorials for students in the Master 1 Physics program who are aiming for professional autonomy in scientific English.

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This teaching is part of the foundation of modern physics. It provides a foundation of knowledge that is strictly necessary for all courses in physics since it lays the foundation for the theoretical description of the interaction between the electromagnetic field and elementary quantum elements such as two-level systems, atoms and molecules. It also provides the necessary teaching for the understanding of LASER, modern optical devices, and spectroscopic methods and analyses.

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This module aims to allow students to confront the experimental reality with their theoretical knowledge. Particular attention is paid to the writing of results and their presentation in the form of oral communication. The work is organized in eight-hour sessions for which a theme is chosen by the students. They record their results and analyses in an experimental notebook based on the model of the protocols used in laboratories. At the end of the semester, the student chooses a theme, which he develops in the form of a final report that he presents orally. This teaching is a preparation for the internships carried out by the students during their studies.

Examples of experiments available: optical spectroscopy (IR, Visible), gamma, X-ray, acoustic; low temperature photoluminescence; near field spectroscopy (AFM, STM); electron microscopy...

The panel of experiments proposed covers the fields of physics taught in the different Physics courses. The student has to choose among the different experiments those which seem to him the closest to his interests. An important effort is made to integrate the new technologies of data acquisition and the use of computer tools in order to compare experiment and theory.

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Through two particular examples (X-ray diffraction and vibrations), this module shows in detail how to model the physical properties of a solid. The formalism will also be applied to finite systems, such as nanoparticles, and will remain valid for amorphous materials, but special attention will be given to periodic systems (from linear chains to protein crystals, including graphene and silicon). Associated to this periodicity will naturally appear the notion of reciprocal network.

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The course aims to provide a general introduction to cellular and molecular biology and to put into context the use of modern physics, through its quantitative methods and approaches, to describe biological systems and their complexity from the molecular to the cellular and tissue scales.

A fundamental point addressed is also the quantification of phenomena, their physical interpretation and their physico-mathematical modeling. The course opens to the philosophy and to the set of themes of this master's course centered on the study of the physical principles of the organization and the dynamics of the living and complex matter.

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This UE includes a refresher and deepening of programming techniques as well as an introduction to numerical physics. We will start with a review of procedural programming with the Python 3 language. Then we will take an in-depth look at numerical methods relevant to physics, studying a selection of classical algorithms from numerical analysis and applying them to physical problems.

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Introduction to advanced statistical physics: grand canonical set; quantum statistics; quantum fluids (Bose-Einstein condensation, thermal radiation; Sommerfeld theory); phase transitions; Ising model; mean field theory; dynamics of complex systems.

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Conducting a research project in an academic or industrial laboratory.

Dates: May-June

Duration: 7 weeks minimum, extendable in July

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The mechanical and thermal properties of materials are at the heart of many applications in the field of materials for energy. After an introduction to these different fields of application, this course aims to define the different concepts necessary to master both the mechanical and thermal properties of materials, limiting itself to bulk materials.

Hourly volumes* :

            CM : 11H

            TD : 9H

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This course presents the concepts, foundations and orders of magnitude of the physics and physical chemistry of interfaces that govern the mesoscopic scale of matter, and ultimately determine the behavior and properties of everyday objects: soil, milk, cheese, paints, inks, cosmetics, adhesives, lubricants ..., many technological processes and biological cells and membranes.

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Knowing how to acquire and process data is an essential skill in a professional scientific and/or technical context. The objective of this course is to address three types of standard know-how in the professional environment:

- Advanced use of spreadsheets/plotters (MS EXCEL, LO-CALC) for scientific and technical use

- Network interconnections: infrastructure, TCP-IP protocol suite, security

- Introduction to relational databases (MS ACCESS, LO-BASE) - concepts & vocabulary, creating queries, graphical reports, forms.

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One of the major issues related to the use of different materials in our daily life is their durability and therefore their degradation. In this course, we will address the issues related to the durability of materials (resources, reserves, criticality of materials, ...) as well as the methodologies for studying durability (types of aging surface / volume, temporal extrapolation, multi-scale, combination of effects, experimental representation and industrial validation). This will then allow to model the aging kinetics from different models.

The different types of degradation affecting polymers will then be analyzed.

Finally, the aging of different types of materials will be illustrated by different concrete case studies (concrete, ceramic, metals and elastomers).

Hourly volume* : 11h CM :

                                    9h TD

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Polymer physics, of which this course is an introduction, is concerned with the physical properties of covalent assemblies in chains, from a few tens to a few millions of elementary molecules: polymers or macromolecules.

These synthetic or natural molecules can be observed in solid, liquid, solution, colloidal or confined to an interface.

Their very particular physical properties have led to the development of specific theoretical tools and to the appearance of this new branch of physics with numerous applications.

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Bibliographical study on a research theme associated with the course and which may be related to the M2 internship subject.

80 hours of personal work spread over the first semester of M2. Several meetings to review the progress of the project will be scheduled with the expert supervisors and the scientific coordinators of the course.

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TD courses in English, for students in the Master 2 Physics program, aiming at professional insertion in English in a contemporary context.

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This module is an opportunity for students to discover the specificities of the working world and to prepare themselves to enter it under the best possible conditions, notably through sharing experiences with professional speakers. Students practice applying for a job in a methodical way, optimizing the analysis of the offer, the targeted writing of the CV and the cover letter, the preparation of the job interview (role plays, simulations).

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This course gives a general introduction to 1) the physics and mechanics of divided media and 2) their modeling through discrete methods (DEM). The multiscale character of a divided material is discussed from the microscopic scale (contact interactions), to the macroscopic scale (structure scale). A phenomenological description of the macroscopic behavior as well as the microscopic properties are discussed for static, quasi-static and flowing states of granular media. Micro-mechanical models and scaling approaches based on dimensionless analysis, averaged quantities, stress transmissions and anisotropies are introduced. The influence of particle properties and contact interactions on the microstructure is also discussed. Discrete Element Methods (DEM), regular (Molecular Dynamics) and non-regular (Contact Dynamics) numerical approaches are presented. In particular, the Contact Dynamics method will be implemented on simple examples through the LMGC90 computational code.

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This module aims to teach the operating principles of the main techniques for characterizing the structure (volume and surface) and properties (optical, electronic, ...) of condensed matter:

• X-ray and electron diffraction techniques
• optical spectroscopy techniques (absorption, reflection, luminescence)
• local probe microscopies

  This module aims to teach the operating principles of the main techniques for characterizing the structure (volume and surface) and properties (optical, electronic, ...) of condensed matter:

  • X-ray and electron diffraction techniques
  • optical spectroscopy techniques (absorption, reflection, luminescence)
  • local probe microscopies

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This course provides an introduction to the field of complex fluids and active matter, with applications to both the physical chemistry of soft matter and the physics of life and biological objects.

It is common to both PhyMV and SoftMat courses.

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Carrying out a long-term research project (6 months) in an academic or industrial research laboratory.

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