Massine Kelai

During his Ph.D. at University Paris Cité, Massine studied the thermal-, light-induced, electronic and magnetic properties of Iron(II) spin-crossover molecules deposited on metals, as well as on ferromagnetic surfaces by STM, XAS and XMCD. Among the contributions made during his Ph.D., he showed the modification of the optical absorption band and thermal-induced properties from assembled submonolayer to multilayers of spin-crossover molecules on metallic surfaces i.e. leading to an anomalous switching in the submonolayer range under constant irradiation and change of collective properties of the system as a function of the system size. On bare magnetic substrates (namely cobalt) and by introducing several decoupling layers of copper, he demonstrated the existence of RKKY-type magnetic coupling between the molecules and the magnetic substrate.

At QNS, Massine works in the use of rare-earth atoms and/or rare-earth organometallic molecules as building blocks of quantum computation. To achieve this, it is necessary to understand how to control the spin of atoms and/or molecules in nanostructured environments, and specifically on surfaces. Thanks to the various advanced experiments in the laboratory, namely ESR-STM with high magnetic field and spin sensitivity, he wants to realize quantum coherence manipulation at the nanometric scale, and thus determine which system would be the most suitable one to be used as quantum bit (Qbit). Another important aspect is to characterize the global magnetic properties of these systems using international Synchrotron facilities (SOLEIL, Alba, Pohang). The ultimate goal is to find out which one has the highest degree of performance at low and high temperatures for quantum computation.