A partner speaks out

Michèle Leduc* and Emmanuel Rosencher**: "the LKB – Onera partnership, a lever for competitiveness"

* Laboratoire Kastler Brossel – quantum physics and applications, Paris
** Onera

While the links relating Onera and the aerospace industry are well known, the many collaborative projects involving fundamental research are less so. They are however of vital importance for the two parties, who benefit mutually from their exchanges. Demonstration by Michèle Leduc, director of the Île-de-France Cold Atom Research Institute (Institut francilien de recherche sur les atomes froids, IFRAF) at the Kastler Brossel laboratory (LKB), a world class major player in the fundamental physics of quantum systems, and Emmanuel Rosencher, Scientific Director of Onera.

 

The interview

What is it that motivates the cooperation between LKB and Onera?

Michèle Leduc and Emmanuel Rosencher

Michèle Leduc: For many years the public authorities have been insisting a great deal on fundamental research nourishing applied research and encouraging innovation, for the benefit of the nation. Our collaborative efforts are along these lines. Of course, the LKB is not directly involved in the developments. However, our relations do facilitate the use of our discoveries in applications that Onera is in a position to identify, thanks to its close association with industry.

Emmanuel Rosencher: It is, of course, the scientific contribution that is of the greatest value. In an extremely competitive world, like that of applied research, being one step ahead is virtually a condition for survival. However, this lead can only be achieved by seeking fundamental research potentials at the source, which requires constant dialogue, close and articulate, with the best laboratories. If we were to wait for research to be published, or be visible to the outside world before taking advantage of it, the race would be lost before it starts. It is part of the mission statement of Onera to be a “bridge”, a “technology maturer” between fundamental and applied research in the domains of defense and aeronautics.

How does the LKB-Onera collaboration work?

Research in non-linear optics at Onera. Photo Antoine GoninM. L.: Since the seventies, a period when we conducted joint research in non-linear optics, many PhD students from Onera were recruited by LKB, and vice versa. Indeed, one of our missions is to train young researchers, PhD students and post-doctoral students who join our laboratories. Working with industrial groups and institutes such as Onera offers them a lot of openings and none of our researchers have ever found themselves without a job when they leave. After all, we need to face up to reality: the real situation for researchers is that they cannot all continue to work in the academic world, as a lecturer or researcher.

What is more, contact with Onera may give us ideas for research themes. This was the case with the Pioneer anomalies, whose name comes from the probe that left the solar system a few years ago and that deviates slightly from its theoretical trajectory, for reasons that we do not yet understand. This problem, initially identified by NASA, was sent on to Onera and they called upon the expertise at LKB to try to understand these phenomena.

What other research subjects are you working on together?

M.L.: We are conducting parallel research in a very fertile area, that of “cold atoms”, atoms cooled to temperatures very close to absolute zero, which, as a result, display quite unusual properties. This is fundamental research that has resulted in concrete applications, the main one being the development of cold atom clocks, the most accurate in the world. With our leading position in this field, France has been the first to develop a cold cesium atom fountain clock, based at the Observatory of Paris. Its margin of error is one second in 100 million years!Ultra-vacuum chamber of the cold atom research interferometric gravimeter at Onera (Girafon). This research may also result in the development of gyrometers and matter wave gravimeters that may someday replace the current technologies used in navigation and geophysics.

E.R.: Another extremely interesting area is that of mechanical resonators in the quantum regime. The innovative aspect comes from what we have been able to give to a macroscopic system in terms of quantum properties, which had only been observed at the atomic and sub-atomic level until now. We are also doing extremely original research work, in collaboration with Professor Claude Fabre, on the quantum aspects of light emitted from black bodies or optical parametric oscillators. With regard to the richness of these collaborations and their potential for application, we understand that remaining open to one another – Onera and academic research – is fundamental.

Last Update: 15 March, 2011 - © ONERA 2009 - Terms of use