Members

IMMC

Marie-Stéphane Colla
Post-doctoral researcher
Dr. at UCLouvain in 2014
Contact

Main project: Coupled mechanical-electrical effects in highly strained Ge thin films
Funding: Senior Researcher
Supervisor(s): Thomas Pardoen

Graduated in chemical and materials science engineering at the Université catholique de Louvain in 2009 (Belgium). Then, under the supervision of Prof. Thomas Pardoen (iMMC) and Prof. Jean-Pierre Raskin (ICTEAM), she accomplished a PhD on the study of the mechanical properties of thin films, more specifically on the plasticity and creep of freestanding nanocrystalline Pd films. The lab-on-chip technique developed previously at the UCL was adapted to deform Pd thin films. After the PhD, she worked for more than two years at the CRM Group in Liège on the development of industrially viable thin film solar cells on steel. From June 2016 to September 2018, she is back at the UCL as a research engineer involved in projects dealing with the understanding of fracture behaviour of high strength steels under a wide range of strain rates. In 2018, she received a 'Chargée de recherches - FNRS grant' and is now working on coupled mechanical-electrical effects in highly strained germanium thin films. Germanium is a promising material for optoelectronic device owing to its compatibility with the standard complementary metal-oxyde-semiconductor (CMOS) technology and to the possibility to convert it into a direct bandgap semiconductor by straining it.

IMMC main research direction(s):
Processing and characterisation of materials

Keywords:
fracture mechanics
micromechanics
thin films

Research group(s): IMAP
Collaborations: collaboration with Jean-Pierre Raskin (ICTEAM)