To access all features of this site, you must enable Javascript. Here are the instructions for enabling Javascript in your web browser.
Fundamental Research Division
The DRF at the CEA assemble approximately 6,000 scientists since January 2016.
Researchers from the CEA-Joliot have shown that molecular engineering of llama antibodies directed against SARS-CoV-1 can be used to obtain optimized antibodies with very high affinities for SARS-CoV-2 and its variants. This is a step towards designing neutralizing molecules for new emerging pathogen strains!
Using advanced computational simulations, physicists from the CEA-Irfu, as part of an international collaboration, have simulated the complex relationships between the convective cells on the surface of the Sun and the Sun’s magnetic field, which together contribute to the overall heating and acceleration of the solar wind.
Blursday, the first database dedicated to the alteration of the perception of time during the confinement imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, has been made available to the scientific community by a consortium led by a researcher from the CEA-Joliot. This large-scale participatory study reveals that the feeling of isolation may have induced the perception of slowed time.
A Franco-German study coordinated by the LSCE (CEA-CNRS-UVSQ) estimates that climate change could shift the peak in Arctic Ocean acidity from winter to summer, which would be disruptive to the ecosystem.
The Irfu has entirely manufactured a test coil in superconducting niobium-tin (Nb3Sn), which was successfully tested at CERN. This opens the way for the development of compact magnets capable of producing a magnetic field twice as large as what is currently available, for use in future particle accelerators.
Researchers at the CEA-Irig have demonstrated that there is an optimal configuration for bringing the coherence times of hole spins closer to those of electron spins.
Nine months after its launch, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has provided unprecedented images of an exoplanet. The first ever obtained in the mid-infrared, these images should revolutionize our knowledge of extrasolar planets. French astronomers, including some from the CEA-Irfu, participated in observing this planet and in designing the telescope coronagraphs.
Researchers at Irig and their partners have demonstrated for the first time that it is possible, through the simple application of a gate voltage, to change the winding direction of magnetization “nano-vortices” (skyrmions), and thus to individually control the direction of their motion. This breakthrough opens up new possibilities for research in information processing (multiplexing, etc.).
An international collaboration involving the LSCE (CEA-CNRS-UVSQ) recommends the earliest possible deployment of these technologies on a large scale. If postponed to the latter half of this century, the available biomass production would be largely reduced by climate change, jeopardizing the goal of containing global warming to 2°C by 2100, and potentially leading to food shortages.
Top page
CEA is a French government-funded technological research organisation in four main areas: low-carbon energies, defense and security, information technologies and health technologies. A prominent player in the European Research Area, it is involved in setting up collaborative projects with many partners around the world.