New Director Takes Up Role at Diamond

Professor Laurent Chapon, an expert in materials science as well as X-ray and neutron diffraction techniques, has been appointed as Physical Sciences Director at Diamond Light Source, the UK’s national synchrotron facility. Prof Chapon joins from the Institut Laue-Langevin (ILL) in Grenoble where he was Senior Fellow and Diffraction Group Leader for over five years,

“I’m delighted to be moving to this exciting new opportunity at the helm of physical sciences at one of the world’s most widely-renowned science centres. I am looking forward to contributing to the astonishing work that Diamond delivers.

“Life sciences at Diamond have been hugely dynamic in facilitating pioneering science. My goal is to emulate that drive and vision for the facility’s physical sciences division. Capitalising on the strengths of the expert team here, I’m confident that we can support Diamond to achieve its full potential.”

After achieving his PhD in materials science from the University of Montpellier, Prof Chapon took up consecutive post-doctoral positions at the Argonne National Laboratory in the USA and the Hahn-Meitner Institut in Germany. From 2002, he worked on the Harwell Campus, first as an Instrument Scientist and then as Crystallographic and Engineering Group Leader for the ISIS Neutron Facility.

In 2011, Prof Chapon moved back to France to take up a Senior Fellow position with the ILL and since 2013 was Diffraction Group Leader; throughout this time, he used the facilities at Diamond, working on new materials and multiferroics; a type of material with the potential to support higher-performing technological devices.

 Prof Chapon has also provided facilities with considerable expertise in the provision of software, as a co-founder and sponsor of the Mantid Project and as developer of more recent C++/python projects, including a package to refine magnetic structures obtained from magnetic X-ray scattering experiments, now in use at Diamond.