Dr Marie Touboul has joined the joint Imperial-CNRS International Research Laboratory Abraham de Moivre.

Dr Marie Touboul will contributing to Imperial’s work in emerging metamaterials as a researcher in the Department of Mathematics.

Novel metamaterials explore synthetic materials which are capable of varying their optical and structural characteristics at rapid timescales. Future metamaterial devices may potentially allow researchers to transform the frequency and energy of waves without the use of magnetic fields.

Dr Touboul’s work lies at the interface between applied mathematics, mechanics and physics, studying next-generation time-varying metamaterials capable of breaking ‘reciprocity’.

In classical physics, a reciprocal medium is one in which waves moving in opposite directions have the same fundamental characteristics such as velocities.

Reciprocity breaking may lead to novel methods of wave control – allowing waves to only propagate or change their properties in one direction.

Dr Touboul’s project will use asymptotic and numerical methods to provide a better understanding of these materials and how to overcome the limits imposed by usual passive metamaterials.

“Imperial is the perfect place to conduct my research,” Dr Touboul said, “The Department of Physics has been active on the topic of time-modulated metamaterials with pioneers such as Professor Sir John Pendry and Professor Riccardo Sapienza.”

With a PhD in Mechanics of Solids from Aix-Marseille University, France, Dr Touboul's academic contributions have been recognided with several awards, including the ECCOMAS PhD Olympiad award.

Following her postdoctoral work at the University of Manchester and at Imperial, her secondment at the joint Imperial-CNRS International Research Laboratory will take place over the course of a year.

Imperial recently won a £7.7m grant, awarded by the Engineer and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), to lead a research consortium on the next generation of meta-materials: Meta4D.

Dr Touboul’s work in the field of metamaterial will further complement activities and strengthen Imperial-CNRS connections.