On 28 March 2008, our international ferroelectrics community suffered a great loss with the passing of Dr. Francois Micheron. He was a distinguished scientist in both the basic physics and the applications of ferroelectrics and related materials.
Francois Micheron was born near Dijon in the Burgundy region of France in 1939 and graduated from Dijon University, where he was a pupil of Professors Genvieve and Lucien Godefroy. He received PhDs in both Electronic Engineering and Physical Sciences. The majority of his career was spent in Paris at Thomson CSF, later the Thales Group, He was a very successful research engineer with a host of significant publications and patents bearing his name. He later went on to be an extremely capable director of several important research laboratories. In recognition of both the depth and breadth of his scientific and engineering knowledge, he was appointed as the Scientific Director on the Board of Directors of Thompson and most appropriately, the Republic of France honoured his many contributions to French science and technology by awarding Dr. Micheron the very prestigious Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur.
Dr. Micheron worked and contributed in many areas of physics and engineering. These included: ferroelectric, piezoelectric, pyroelectric, dielectric, and electrooptic materials and their applications in a variety of devices and systems, many of which today are of great commercial importance. Two areas that Francois Micheron played a pioneer role in that will be remembered by many of the readers of this journal are the photo refractive effect in ferroelectrics and the development and applications of piezoelectric polymers.
Dr. Micheron was one of the first to comprehensively investigate bulk photorefractive and photovoltaic effects in ferroelectrics. His fundamental work on LiNbO3: Fe crystals showed how the photorefractive effect in these ferroelectric materials could be used to achieve three dimensional holography. This discovery eventually led to a wide new area of research into ferroelectric adaptive optics.
The other important field of his scientific and engineering activity that we would like to highlight is Dr. Micheron's pioneering work in ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of polymer materials such as PVDF and its copolymers. He made (i) major contributions to the basic physics of piezoelectric polymers (ii) developed a critical technology “high temperature continuous poling” for the large scale fabrication of the polymers which made commercial devices and applications viable and (iii) designed and built a variety of important devices and systems based on these polymers,
Francois Micheron was well known and respected for his knowledge and his kindness throughout the world wide ferroelectics community. He was invited to give plenary and invited papers at many national and international conferences. He was one of the small group of scientists who helped to establish the very successful European Meetings on Ferroelectricity (EMF Series) and the European Conference on Applications of Polar Dielectrics (ECAPD Series).
Francois's friendship and the hospitality of he and his charming wife Michelle are treasured memories for all of us who were fortunate enough to know them. For many of us Francois was our mentor for Paris. He loved and knew Paris, its history and its art treasures. Francois was a wise and witty, yet modest man. He was a person that one was privileged to know. The memory of Dr. Francois Micheron remains always in our hearts.
Vladimir M. Fridkin
Institute of Crystallography
Moscow, Russia
George W. Taylor
Princeton Resources
Princeton, New Jersey, USA