Sébastien Mouchet - image credit: S. Mouchet
Authors: Sébastien Mouchet & Gina Gunaratnam
In 2024, the EPS released a calendar of "Inspiring Physicists". Read
the interview of Sébastien Mouchet, researcher & honorary senior
lecturer at the University of Mons, Belgium and the University of
Exeter, UK. He wrote the editorial of the calendar, together with Lorena
Ballesteros Ferraz and Riccardo Muolo.
How did you get to know the European Physical Society?
As
a master’s student at the University of Namur, Belgium, I attended the
annual meeting of the Belgian Physical Society (BPS) organised in Namur
in May 2011. BPS is a member society of the European Physical Society. I
became a member of the BPS and started receiving the Europhysics News. I
remember that the issue that I got at that conference featured an
introduction to natural and bioinspired photonics co-authored by Pete
Vukusic (https://www.europhysicsnews.org/articles/epn/abs/2011/03/epn2011423p20/epn2011423p20.html)
whose group hosted me for about 4-5 years as a postdoctoral researcher
later on in my career. It was a surprising coincidence as I was at the
time carrying out my master’s thesis in this field.
Could you describe your current field of research in a few words?
The
field of natural and bioinspired photonics investigates optical effects
in natural organisms, typically phenomena arising from photonic
structures, and takes inspiration from these effects and the related
optical structures to develop novel technological applications.
What are the challenges of your field?
One
of the main challenges in natural photonics is to understand how nature
produces photonic structures, often very regular structures at the
100-nm scale that compete in terms of performances with structures
fabricated by nanotechnology. Unveiling the exact developmental stages
of these structures would be a big step forward.
How would you encourage students to work in this field?
This
field of research is very multidisciplinary. It involves some aspects
of physics and photonics, of materials science as well as of biology. It
also relies on both experimental and numerical approaches. I often try
to adapt the project of eager students to what they want and what
motivates them: more simulations, only simulations, more experiments or
only experiments; more physics, more materials science, or more biology
depending on what they are interested in.
Why is it important for you to encourage girls to study physics?
Since
the second year of my bachelor’s degree to the end of my master’s
degree in physics, my cohort was exclusively composed of men. I had a
great time but one must admit that it was a bit peculiar. I could not
imagine that girls and women are less good at or less interested in
physics. I think that science and research have much to gain from being
more inclusive and diverse.
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