people: A. Lereu

Dr. A. L. Lereu

Dr Lereu is a post-doctoral student at at the Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques (ICFO) in Barcelona, Spain. Here she continues the work that she first began at ORNL and continues to collaborate on projects there. Her personal webpage can be accessed at http://users.icfo.es/Aude.Lereu/ .

She received both her MS and PhD degrees in Physics at the Department of Physics (Laboratoire d’optique submicronique) of the University of Burgundy, Dijon, France in 2002 and 2005 respectively. Her research for both her dissertation and her thesis was carried out at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA. While working in Oak Ridge, she also spent time at the University of Tennessee, working as a Graduate Assistant in the Physics Department.

Main research interests:

Surface plasmons assisted coupling (SPAC):

SPAC is a process that involves the interaction between the electron oscillations in a thin metal film excited by a laser beam and those excited by several other laser beams, in the same region of the metal film. For this study, we utilize photon-plasmon coupling using infrared in the Kretschmann configuration, and we bring visible laser beams at their resonance angle in the infrared surface plasmon region.
Surface plasmon interference in thin gold films.

We use the Photon Scanning Tunneling Microscope (PSTM) to image the electromagnetic field induced by the surface plasmon standing wave at the thin film surfaces. We image these interference patterns for a wavelength range from the visible to the infrared.

Other research:

Study of flows at microscale (using microcantilevers) in the non-continuum regime and for high Knudsen number. This work involves thermal transpiration, rarefied gas dynamics in different molecular regimes.

Publications and conferences:

A. L. Lereu, A. Passian, T. L. Ferrell, and T. Thundat, “Effect of thermal variations on the Knudsen forces in the transitional regime,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 84 (6), 1013 (Feb. 2004).

A. Passian, A. Wig, A. L. Lereu, P. G. Evans, F. Meriaudeau, T. Thundat, and T. L. Ferrell, “Probing large area surface plasmon interference in thin metal films using photon scanning tunneling microscopy,” Ultramicroscopy 98, (2004).

A. Passian, A. Wig, A. L. Lereu, F. Meriaudeau, T. Thundat, and T. L. Ferrell,
“Plasmon interference,” presented at the Scanning Probe Microscopy Sensors and Nanostructures Conference, Oxford, U.K., May 23-26 2003.

A. L. Lereu, A. Passian, T. L. Ferrell, and T. Thundat, “An investigation of Knudsen effect with microcantilever,” presented at the International micro and nanotechnology meeting (Rencontres internationales des micro et nanotechnologies, MINATEC 2003), Grenoble (Alpes congrès), France, September 22-26 2003.