Organic-inorganic hybrids

Today, the search for new materials for various applications and new devices leads to the development of new synthetic routes mixing the concepts of solid state chemistry, molecular or supramolecular chemistry, or biochemistry. This is particularly evident in the field of organic-inorganic hybrid materials, whose realization is based on the design and organization of custom synthesized functional building blocks. Our contribution in this field concerns mainly families of lamellar hybrid compounds based on transition metal hydroxides or oxides, their synthesis and the analysis of their magnetic, optical or electronic properties. These materials often prove to be good model systems for the understanding of the correlations between the structural and physical properties induced by the molecular entities grafted on the inorganic layers.

We are developing different ways to access these lamellar hybrid materials: insertion-grafting, anion exchange, pre-insertion, microwave chemistry or syntheis in confined environment.

Beyond lamellar materials, we have been interested in the past few years in the development of innovative methods to obtain functionalized inorganic nanosheets. The fine characterization of the suspensions of these nanosheets and their controlled deposition are key-aspects of our activity.

Thanks to this toolbox for the synthesis and characterization of lamellar hybrid materials and functionalized nanosheets, we aim at improving the understanding of organic-inorganic interfaces and their influence on the global behavior of hybrid structures. Modelization by numerical approaches (electronic structure calculations and structural optimization) is also used to describe these hybrid systems at the atomic scale, in connection with the “atomic scale modeling” team.