Centre for Materials Elaboration and Structural Studies
The "Centre d’Élaboration de Matériaux et d’Etudes Structurales" (CEMES) is a CNRS laboratory located in Toulouse, France. CEMES is a public fundamental research laboratory specializing in solid state physics, nanosciences, molecular chemistry and materials science. Its activities cover a spectrum from synthesizing (nano)materials and molecular systems to study and modelling of their structures and physical properties (optical, mechanical, electronic and magnetic) and their integration in devices. An important part of the laboratory’s experimental activity is studying and manipulating individual objects whose characteristic sizes are at the nanometric or atomic scales. Most of  this experimental work uses state-of-the-art instrumentation supported by instrumental and methodological developments in the laboratory’s fields of transmission electron microscopy, near-field microscopy and optical spectroscopy. These research and development themes integrate modelling and theoretical studies carried out at different scales within the laboratory. CEMES is a CNRS laboratory associated with Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier University and Institut National des Sciences Appliquées de Toulouse (INSA). Created in 1988, CEMES followed the previous Laboratoire d’Optique Electronique (LOE) created in 1957 by Prof. Gaston Dupouy. In contact with the academic community, CEMES is involved in training given at  the university at every level: Bachelor, Master and Doctorate. CEMES currently hosts about 160 people. In 2020 this included: 40 full-time CNRS researchers, 27 University professors or assistant professors, 37 engineers, technicians and administrative staff, and eight postdocs, 32 Ph.D. students, and many undergraduate students. Research teams. The are seven research teams at CEMES: Main facilities. The CEMES experimental facilities face the challenges of fabrication and imaging of "nano-objects" as well as the manipulation of their physical properties: The Boule. The Boule is a large spherical steel building, 25 meters in diameter, an icon for CEMES. The construction  of the Boule was initiated by Gaston Dupouy, and the building was inaugurated in 1959 by General de Gaulle. It was designed to house the 1-million-volt electron microscope that operated from 1960 to 1991. The original microscope was later dismantled, but the electron accelerator has been preserved and still stands under the vault of the sphere.