An ERC Synergy Grant for Thomas Ebbesen and Cyriaque Genet

Thomas Ebbesen and Cyriaque Genet, in partnership with teams from the University of Tel Aviv, the University of Pennsylvania and the Max Planck Institute in Hamburg, were awarded a prestigious Synergy Grant from the European Research Council.

Thomas Ebbesen, Chair of Physical Chemistry of Light-Matter Interactions of the Strasbourg University Institute for Advanced Study (USIAS) and Cyriaque Genet, 2018 USIAS Fellow, are both based at the Institute of Supramolecular Science and Engineering (ISIS) at the University of Strasbourg. They are the laureates of a prestigious ERC Synergy Grant with three other teams at the University of Tel Aviv (Israel), the University of Pennsylvania (USA) and the Max Planck Institute for the Structure and Dynamics of Matter (Germany).

The project “Unravelling the Mysteries of Vibrational Strong Coupling” (UNMYST) is focused on polaritonic chemistry, a field that was imagined and developed at ISIS during the past 15 years. In polaritonic chemistry, the interaction between molecules and electromagnetic fluctuations are enhanced in optical cavities, in the dark, which can radically modify the properties of matter such as chemical reactivity. Together, the four teams aim to understand during the next six years the underlying chemical physics in order to make a polaritonic chemistry a predictive tool for the molecular sciences. This new approach to control the properties of matter has generated considerable interest around the world as it not only raises fundamental questions but also opens up unsuspected technological potential.

An ERC Synergy Grant is one of the most prestigious and competitive awards given by the European Research Council (ERC) and is evaluated on the sole criterion of scientific excellence. In 2024, the ERC selected 57 projects out of 548 proposals to receive a total of €571 million. This funding spans a variety of complex scientific challenges across 24 countries in Europe and beyond, reflecting the ERC's mission to support frontier research and foster innovation. More information.