Dr. Franck Fayon (PhD, 1998 University of Orléans) is research director at CNRS in the CEMHTI laboratory located in Orléans. His research focuses on the development and application of advanced solid-state NMR methods to material chemistry. He has a long standing experience in the study of oxide glasses and related metastable materials using solid-state NMR. He is currently deputy director of the CEMHTI laboratory.

The SMARTER approach to understand the structures and properties of new inorganic materials

While the resolution of crystalline phase structures was mainly based on diffraction techniques (X-rays, neutrons, electrons), the introduction of the SMARTER crystallographic approach has brought a new dimension to the description of complex structures by combining diffraction, solid-state NMR and ab-initio modeling methods [1]. In this talk, the potential of the SMARTER approach for characterizing the structures of novel inorganic materials will be illustrated through several examples including low thermal expansion phosphate materials [2], transparent polycrystalline ceramics [3], new oxide ion conductive materials [4] or nonstoichimetric YAG ceramics with modified luminescence properties [5]. 
[1] L. Beitone et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 125, 1912 (2003), [2] F. Fayon et al., Chem. Mater. 15, 2234 (2003), [3] K. Al Saghir et al., Chem. Mater. 27, 508 (2015), [5] X. Yang et al., Nature Comm. 9, 4484 (2018), [6] W. Cao et al, Adv. Func. Mat. 33, 2213418 (2023).