Directeur de Recherche 1ère Classe (Senior CNRS Researcher)
Head of the research laboratory for “Molecular Materials & Magnetism”
Member of the European Academy of Sciences (Brussels, Belgium; www.eurasc.org)
Member of the Academia Europaea (MAE, London, UK; www.ae-info.org)
Member of the Société Philomathique de Paris (www.philomathique.paris/index.php/home)
CNRS Silver Medal 2021
Place and date of Birth:
Versailles (Yvelines, France)
July 18th, 1971
Institutional address:
Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal (CRPP)
Université de Bordeaux – CNRS UMR 5031
M3 research team
115, avenue du Dr. Albert Schweitzer
33600 Pessac, France
Phone: +33 5 56 84 56 50
+33 6 03 51 74 16
Fax: +33 5 56 84 56 00
Email: rodolphe.clerac@u-bordeaux.fr
orcid.org/0000-0001-5429-7418
@CleracR
CNRS Interview 2022 (in french)
Rodolphe Clérac received his education in Physical-Chemistry at the University of Bordeaux, France. His Ph.D. work was devoted to the physical properties of molecular antiferromagnetic materials under the supervision of Prof. C. Coulon (defended in 1997). After a short post-doctoral stay in the group of Prof. O. Kahn (ICMCB, Bordeaux), he joined Prof. K. R. Dunbar’s group in 1998 at Michigan State University (East Lansing, Michigan, USA) and worked on the magnetic properties of coordination chemistry based materials. In 1999, he moved with Prof. K. R. Dunbar’s group to Texas A&M University (College Station, Texas, USA) where he collaborated with Prof. F.A. Cotton on the magnetic properties of metal-metal bonded complexes. He joined the University of Bordeaux in 2000, as associate professor, then in 2008 became full CNRS researcher, got his Habilitation in 2011 and was promoted CNRS Research Director DR2 in 2013 and DR1 in 2018. He was elected in 2022 at the Société Philomathique de Paris (1788), in 2019 at the European Academy of Sciences and in 2020 at the Academia Europaea, became in 2014 a distinguished young fellow of the French Chemical Society and received various awards including the CNRS Silver Medal in 2021, the 2022 RSC/SCF lectureship in Chemical Sciences, the France-Berkeley Fund Award in 2017, the National Chinese Award of the “1000 Talents Program” in 2014 and the Young Researcher award of the Physical Chemistry Division of the French Chemical Society in 2009. Since 2001, Dr. Clérac has developed at the Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal (CNRS) a research team on “molecular materials & magnetism” interested in the synthesis and physical studies of molecular materials including (i) macroconjugated polyaromatic molecules, (ii) molecule-based magnets, single-molecule magnets and single-chain magnets (and their derivatives) with high blocking temperatures or photo-switching properties, (iii) spin-crossover and paramagnetic metal-metal bonded complexes, and (iv) magnetic and/or electro-active solutions and liquid-crystals. During his career, Dr. R. Clérac has trained 33 postdocs, 30 PhD students, 25 Master students, 49 visiting PhD students (for short training period) and 24 undergraduate students. Importantly Dr. R. Clérac has also developed a scientific network of active collaborations across the globe with currently 79 research teams in 28 different countries.
Academic education and professional positions
| Since 2018 | Senior CNRS Researcher (DR1) at the Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal (CNRS UMR 5031) |
| 2013-2018 | Senior CNRS Researcher (DR2) at the Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal (CNRS UPR 8641) |
| 2011 | Research Habilitation (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches, HDR) from the Université Bordeaux 1 |
| 2008-2013 | CNRS Researcher at the Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal (CNRS UPR 8641) |
| Since 01/2001 | Head of the “Molecular Magnetic Materials” (2001-2013) and “Molecular Materials & Magnetism” (since 2013) teams at the Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal (CNRS, UPR 8641) |
| 09/2000 – 09/2008 | Associate Professor at IUT Bordeaux I and Centre de Recherche Paul Pascal (CRPP UPR 8641) |
| 09/1999 – 08/2000 | Post-doctoral Research Associate, University of Texas A&M (College Station, USA) in the group of Prof. K. R. Dunbar and in collaboration with the late Prof. F. A. Cotton |
| 04/1998 – 09/1999 | Post-doctoral Research Associate, Michigan State University (East Lansing USA) in the group of Prof. K. R. Dunbar |
| 09/1997 – 04/1998 | Assistant Professor at the Université Bordeaux I: “New cyano-based magnets” under the supervision of Prof. O. Kahn (ICMCB, Pessac) |
| 09/1995 – 08/1997 | Teaching Assistant at the Université Bordeaux I |
| 10/1994 – 08/1997 | PhD Thesis in Physical-Chemistry at the Université Bordeaux I: “Physical properties of antiferromagnetic molecular materials” under the supervision of Prof. C. Coulon (CRPP, Pessac) |
| 10/1992 – 07/1994 | Master degree in Physical-Chemistry at the Université Bordeaux I |
| 09/1989 – 06/1992 | Bachelor degree in Chemistry at the Université Bordeaux I |
Awards & Honors
| 2022 | RSC/SCF Lectureship in Chemical Sciences for the development of new research areas in molecular magnetism and contributions to the study of magnetic materials. |
| 2022 | Elected Member of the Société Philomathique de Paris (www.philomathique.paris/index.php/home) |
| 2022 | Listed by Research.com in 2022 as the among the 1000 chemists in the world. |
| 2021 | CNRS Silver Medal |
| 2020 | Elected Member of the Academia Europaea (MAE, London, UK; www.ae-info.org) |
| 2019 | Elected Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences (Brussels, Belgium; www.eurasc.org) |
| Since 2003 | French national award of scientific excellence (PES or PEDR) |
| 2014 – 2019 | Junior Distinguished Member of the Société Chimique de France |
| August 2019 & July 2016 | Visiting Professor of the Nanjing University of Science and Technology (Nanjing, China). |
| 2017 | France-Berkeley Fund Award in recognition of scholarly excellence and commitment to advancing research relationships between France and the United States |
| December 2018 & November 2017 | Dumont d’Urville Visiting Professor of the Auckland University of Technology (Auckland, New-Zealand) |
| July-August 2017 | Visiting Researcher of the University of Ottawa (Office of the Vice-President, Research; Ottawa, Canada). |
| 2014 | National Chinese Award of the “1000 Talents Program” with Central China Normal University (Wuhan, China) |
| October & March 2012 | Erasmus Mundus Visiting Professor of the Moldova State University, (Chisinau, Moldavie) |
| October 2011 & October 2010 | Dumont d’Urville Visiting Professor of the University of Otago, (Nouvelle-Zélande) |
| April 2009 | Visiting Professor of the University of Costa Rica, (San José, Costa Rica) |
| 2009 | “Young researcher” award of the “Division de Chimie-Physique (DCP)”, a joint division of the Société Chimique de France (SCF) and the Société Française de Physique (SFP) |
| June 2008 | Distinguished Visiting Professor of the Northeast Normal Univ., (Changchun, Chine) |
Publications & lectures
Author or co-author of 521 publications published in peer-reviewed journals (h factor: 83, 24642 citations with an average of 47.3 citations per article; 15/06/2022) and 41 conference proceedings. About 70% of his publications have been published in scientific peer-reviewed journals having an IF’19 superior at 4. He presented 180 lectures including 81 invited lectures in conferences, 65 invited seminars in laboratories and 20 invited teaching lectures.
Most important publications
[678]. P. Perlepe, I. Oyarzabal, A. Mailman, M. Yquel, M. Platunov, I. Dovgaliuk, M. Rouzières, P. Négrier, D. Mondieig, E. A. Suturina, M.A. Dourges, S. Bonhommeau, R. A. Musgrave, K. S. Pedersen, D. Chernyshov, F. Wilhelm, A. Rogalev, C. Mathonière, R. Clérac, “Metal-organic magnets with large coercivity and ordering temperatures up to 242°C”, Science, Vol. 370, Issue 6516, pp. 587-592, (2020) – 10.1126/science.abb3861 – Abstract – Reprint – Full text
[664]. J.L. Liu, K.S. Pedersen, S.M. Greer, I. Oyarzabal, A. Mondal, S. Hill, F. Wilhelm, A. Rogalev, A. Tressaud, E. Durand, J.R. Long and R. Clérac, “Access to Heteroleptic Fluorido-Cyanido Complexes with a Large Magnetic Anisotropy by Fluoride Abstraction”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 59, 10306 -10310, (2020) – 10.1002/ange.201914934
[647]. X. Ma, E. A. Suturina, M. Rouzières, M. Platunov, F. Wilhelm, A. Rogalev, R. Clérac, P. Dechambenoit, “Using Redox-Active π Bridging Ligand as a Control Switch of Intramolecular Magnetic Interactions”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 141, 7721-7725 (2019) – 10.1021/jacs.9b03044
[633]. K. S. Pedersen, P. Perlepe, M. L. Aubrey, D. N. Woodruff, S.E. Reyes-Lillo, A. Reinholdt, L. Voigt, Z. Li, K. Borup, M. Rouzières, D. Samohvalov, F. Wilhelm, A. Rogalev, J. B. Neaton, J. R. Long, R. Clérac, “Formation of the layered conductive magnet CrCl2(pyrazine)2 through redox-active coordination chemistry”, Nature Chemistry, 10, 1056-1061 (2018) – 0.1038/s41557-018-0107-7
[628]. X. Ma, E. A. Suturina, S. De, P. Négrier, M. Rouzières, R. Clérac, P. Dechambenoit, “A Redox-Active Bridging Ligand to Promote Spin Delocalization,
High-Spin Complexes, and Magnetic Multi-Switchability”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 57, 7841-7845 (2018) – 10.1002/anie.201803842
[612]. D. Rosario-Amorin, P. Dechambenoit, A. Bentaleb, M. Rouzières, C. Mathonière, R. Clérac, “Multistability at Room Temperature in a Bent-Shaped Spin-Crossover Complex Decorated with Long Alkyl Chains”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 140, 98−101 (2018) – 10.1021/jacs.7b11042
[573]. K. S. Pedersen, J. Bendix, A. Tressaud, E. Durand, H. Weihe, Z. Salman, T. J. Morsing, D. N. Woodruff, Y. Lan, W. Wernsdorfer, C. Mathonière, S. Piligkos, S. I. Klokishner, S. Ostrovsky, K. Ollefs, F. Wilhelm, A. Rogalev, R. Clérac, “Iridates from the molecular side”, Nature Communications 7, 12195 (2016) – 10.1038/ncomms12195
[521]. E.S. Koumousi, I-R. Jeon, Q. Gao, P. Dechambenoit, D.N. Woodruff, P. Merzeau, L. Buisson, X. Jia, D. Li, F. Volatron, C. Mathonière, R. Clérac, “Metal-to-Metal Electron Transfer in Co/Fe Prussian Blue Molecular Analogues: The Ultimate Miniaturization”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., 136, 15461-15464 (2014) – 10.1021/ja508094h
[386]. Y. Zhang, D. Li, R. Clérac, M. Kalisz, C. Mathonière and S.M. Holmes “Reversible Thermally and Photoinduced Electron Transfer in a Cyano-Bridged {Fe2Co2} Square Complex”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 49, 3752-3756, (2010) – 10.1002/anie.201000765
[345]. C. Coulon, R. Clérac, W. Wernsdorfer, T. Colin, H. Miyasaka, “Realization of a Magnet Using an Antiferromagnetic Phase of Single-Chain Magnets”, Phys. Rev. Lett., (2009), 102, 167204(1-4) / 10.1103/PhysRevLett.102.167204
[284]. D. Li, R. Clérac, O. Roubeau, E. Harté, C. Mathonière, R. Le Bris, S.M. Holmes, “Magnetic and Optical Bistability Driven by Thermally and Photoinduced Intramolecular Electron Transfer in a Molecular Cobalt-Iron Prussian Blue Analogue”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., (2008), 130, 1, 252-258 / 10.1021/ja0757632
[253]. L. Lecren, W. Wernsdorfer, Y-G. Li, A. Vindigni, H. Miyasaka, R. Clérac, “One-Dimensional Supramolecular Organization of Single-Molecule Magnets”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., (2007), 129, 16, 5045-5051 / 10.1021/ja067744i
[199]. M. Ferbinteanu, H. Miyasaka, W. Wernsdorfer, K. Nakata, K-I. Sugiura, M. Yamashita, C. Coulon, R. Clérac, “Single-Chain Magnet (NEt4)[Mn2(5-MeOsalen)2Fe(CN)6] Made of MnIII-FeIII-MnIII Trinuclear Single-Molecule Magnet with an ST = 9/2 Spin Ground State”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., (2005), 127, 3090-3099 / 10.1021/ja0468123
[171]. O. Roubeau, A. Colin, V. Schmitt, R. Clérac, “Thermoreversible Gels as Magneto-Optical Switches”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., (2004), 43, 3283-3286 / 10.1002/anie.200454050
[134]. R. Clérac, H. Miyasaka, M. Yamashita, C. Coulon, “Evidence for Single-Chain Magnet behavior in a MnIII-NiII chain designed with high spin magnetic units: a route to high temperature magnets”, J. Am. Chem. Soc., (2002), 124, 12837-12844 / 10.1021/ja0203115
Directly supervised PhD work (25)
| Since January 2022 | Vincent Nadurata, “Switchable Molecule-based Magnets at Room Temperature” co-supervised with Prof. C. Mathonière. |
| Since October 2021 | Mengting Suo, “Synthesis and characterization of redox-active molecular nanomagnets” co-supervised with Dr. P. Dechambenoit. |
| Since September 2021 | Katia Dujarric, “High TC Molecular Magnets” co-supervised with Prof. C. Mathonière. |
| Since February 2021 | Rasmus Tang Christiansen, “Double Exchange Spin Dynamics within Valence Delocalised Molecular Magnets” co-supervised with Dr. M. Baker (University of Manchester, UK) & Jacques Ollivier (Institut Laue-Langevin, Grenoble) |
| Since December 2020 | Abhijit Adak, “Advanced 2D materials by metal-organic framework engineering” |
| Since September 2019 | Dandan Lou, “Synthesis, study and functionalization of redox-active molecule-based 2D materials” |
| 2017 – 2020 | Morgane Yquel, “Pyrazine based coordination polymers: Toward high temperature magnetically ordered materials.” co-supervised with Prof. C. Mathonière |
| 2016 – 2019 | Hongyuan Chuai, “Synthesis of TiO2 Nanotube-Supported Rh-M Catalysts and Catalytic Performance of Hydroformylation” co-supervised with Prof. Weiping Huang (Nankai University, China) |
| 2016 – 2019 | Panagiota S. Perlepe, “Magnetic and Electrically Conductive Two-Dimensional Coordination Networks Based on the Redox-Active Pyrazine Ligand” co-supervised with Prof. C. Mathonière |
| 2015 – 2019 | Xiaozhou Ma, “Synthesis and study of redox-active nanomagnets” co-supervised with Dr. P. Dechambenoit |
| 2013 – 2017 | Elena Darbinean, “Rational functionalization of molecular materials: towards magnetic liquids and liquid crystals” |
| 2013 – 2017 | Dumitru Samohvalov, “Synthesis and characterization of new molecular magnets” co-supervised with Dr. P. Dechambenoit |
| 2012 – 2015 | Evangelia Koumousi, “Photomagnetic molecular materials” co-supervised with Prof. C. Mathonière (ICMCB, Pessac France) |
| 2011 – 2015 | Mihail Secu, “Molecular Magnetic materials based on thiosemicarbazone ligands” co-supervised with Prof. M. Revenco (Moldova State University, Chisinau, Moldavie) |
| 2011 – 2013 | Kasper Steen Pedersen, “New single-molecule and single-chain magnets” co-supervised with Prof. J. Bendix (University of Copenhagen, Denmark) |
| 2010 – 2014 | Dmitri Mitcov, “Rational functionalization of molecular magnetic materials: toward liquid crystalline phases, improved solubility and modulation of the physical properties” |
| 2009 – 2012 | Ie-Rang Jeon, “Organization of Single-Molecule Magnets by coordination chemistry: toward a new generation of magnetic and photomagnetic molecular materials” co-supervised with Prof. C. Mathonière (ICMCB, Pessac France) |
| 2009 – 2012 | Indrani Bhowmick, “Synthesis and characterization of molecular magnetic materials based on 3d and 4d/5d metal ions bridged by cyanido ligands” |
| 2008 – 2012 | Oleg Palamarciuc, “Synthesis, structure and magnetic properties of mono- and poly-nuclear coordination complexes” co-supervised with Prof. M. Revenco (Chisinau, Moldavie) |
| 2008 – 2011 | Diana Siretanu, “Functionalization of magnetic molecular materials: toward solubles systems and liquid-crystals” |
| 2007 – 2011 | Rodica Ababei, “Synthesis and characterization of new magnetic and photomagnetic molecular materials” co-supervised with Prof. C. Mathonière |
| 2007 – 2010 | Juergen Feuersenger, “Synthesis and characterisation of 3d-4f-complexes and their magnetic properties” co-supervised with Prof. A. K. Powell |
| 2004 – 2007 | Pauline Grondin, “Physico-chemical studies of magnetic liquid-crystals and gels” co-supervised with Prof. A. Colin |
| 2002 – 2006 | Lollita Lecren, “Organization of Single-Molecule Magnets in coordination and inorganic networks: syntheses, structures and properties” |
| 2002 – 2005 | Xavier F. Le Goff, “Preparation and studies of the physico-chemical properties of new magnetic materials” co-supervised with Prof. C. Coulon |