ERC MARCHES – Modelling of Architectures Ruled by Coupled or Heightened Excited States

The MARCHES ERC was led by Denis JACQUEMIN and aimed to develop and apply theoretical tools to optimize multi-photochromic molecular systems. MARCHES has been funded by a 1.5 M€ ERC Starting Grant (n° 278845, 2012-2016), complemented by a 0.1 M€ regional support (Région Pays de la Loire).

4-year project

2012 - 2016

€ 1,5M

ERC funds

228

person-months effort over the 4 years

11

internal team members

The goal of the MARCHES project is to rationalise and optimize the interplay between electronically excited-states in complex molecular architectures.

The simulation of the properties of large conjugated architectures is to be performed with ab initio tools explicitly taking into account environmental effects.

ERC MARCHES CEISAM logo

In more details

Though efficient methods able to tackle such task are to be conceived during this project, we aim to enlighten coupled excited-states so to pave the way towards chemically-intuitive designs of new molecules. Indeed, the rationalisation and optimisation of the excited-state properties of large compounds is not only one of the major challenges of computational chemistry and physics, it also opens new horizons for emergent properties.

In that framework, this project will allow to design molecular switches usable as building blocks for complex logic gates, subsequently unlocking crucial steps towards more efficient storage materials. To this end, compounds containing several photochromic switches coupled at the excited state have to be designed: this is an important challenge. Indeed, photochromes are actually limited to uncoupled or simply additive systems: emergent multi-addressable features are impossible to achieve.

Project team

Denis JACQUEMIN

Professor at University of Nantes

Project leader

Gaëlle RODRIGUEZ

Project Manager

Administrative and financial management
(2012 – 2015)

Élodie GUILLON

Project Manager

Administrative and financial management (2016)

Aymeric BLONDEL

Engineer

Cluster supercomputing

Adèle LAURENT

CNRS researcher

WP2-3

Azzam CHARAF-EDDIN

PhD student

WP1 (2012 – 2013)

Agisilaos CHANTZIS

PhD student

WP1 (2012 – 2014)

Simon BUDZAK

PhD student

WP1 (2015 – 2016)

David MENDIVE-TAPIA

PhD student

WP3 (2013 – 2014)

Arnaud FIHEY

PhD student

WP3 (2014 – 2016)

Daniel ESCUDERO-MASA

PhD student

WP4

Anouar BELHBOUB

PhD student

WP4 (2016)

Siwar CHIBANI

PhD student

WP1 (2012 – 2015)

Ymène HOUARI

PhD student

WP2 (2012 – 2015)

Kathy J.CHEN

PhD student

WP4 (2013 – 2016)

Titouan JAUNET-LAHARY

Trainee

WP3 (2014)

Cloé AZARIAS

Trainee

WP2 (2014)