This year the CNRS Crystal award was won by Hamid M’Jahed from the Jean Lamour Institute. Meeting with an electronics specialist who has evolved in research in the Lorraine since 1995.

Hamid M’Jahed, 51, was distinguished by the CNRS Crystal award on 27 January 2012 for "his implication and his contribution to scientific progress and enlarged research influence.

Eurêka.Lorraine : How do you welcome this distinction ?
Hamid M’Jahed : I am very pleased and very proud, even more so because it is the only Crystal awarded this year at the National Chemistry Institute and in the Centre-East CNRS. I received it as recognition for my research motivation and vision that the CNRS motto resumes well : "Go beyond the frontiers of knowledge, keep going still further in the search for knowledge". The DECLIC (Research into Growth and Critical Liquids) project to which I contributed is a perfect example. Associating the CNRS, CNES, EADS, JLI and NASA, this mini-laboratory incarnates the success of interdisciplinarity and is now orbiting the world on the international space station. It carries thermoelectric sensors conceived and developed within the JLI capable of regulating the temperature to a thousandth of a degree and of functioning at high temperatures (over 400°C). These key parts testify to a rare expertise because they are the 1st European high temperature modules certified for space.

What motivations drive your scientific career ?
Learning still more, without flagging, I don’t consider anything to be out of reach. So, at the end of the DECLIC project, I changed research theme by concentrating on the development of the SAW (Surface Acoustic Waves) sensors. Designed to take measurements in hostile environments, these micro-sensors have no internal energy sources, wires or electronic components. My work was the subject of my Cnam engineer’s doctorate thesis. The results obtained benefited from finance from the University of Lorraine PRES and the OSEO for the production of a demonstrator. They have also enabled a patent to be registered with the INPI in order to prepare its transfer to the industrial world. This is exactly what motivates me: materialising the fundamental research results to lead to an innovative product or a demonstrator intended for industrialists.

What projects do you have ?
I am continuing my research results development at the Jean Lamour Institute with a view to producing innovative sensors for industrial applications or for the general public. I am also involved in communicating, notably to ESSTIN engineering students, my passion for research. Lastly, as my teachers did for me in the past, I encourage young people from economically and geographically disadvantaged areas to engage in advanced studies through the association "Draw me a dream". With colleague researchers, engineers and technicians we go out and meet these young people to talk to them about our experiences, offer to sponsor them and open the doors of our laboratories to them.

Lorraine region weightlessness sensors Designed and manufactured by a Jean Lamour Institute team, the thermoelectric modules are at the core of experiments undertaken at the International Space Station. These experiments will permit studying supercritical water properties.

© Picture : Clotilde Verdenal - l’Œil Créatif & Claude Delhaye - CNRS Photothèque
 

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