Jacques Friedel, born in Paris, February 11, 1921, entered the Ecole
polytechnique (1944-46) then the Ecole nationale supérieure des mines
(1946-48). He thus followed up the family tradition starting with his
great-grand father Charles Friedel, a famous organic chemist and crystallographer
at Paris Sorbonne, his grand-father Georges Friedel best known for his
work on liquid crystals, his father Edmond Friedel who was the director
of the National School of Mines (1937-65). Jacques Friedel
obtained a Licence ès sciences degree at the University of Paris in 1948,
then was initiated to physical metallurgy in the Metallurgy Laboratory
of the School of Mines headed by C. Crussard. He spent three years at
Bristol University (UK) in Nevill F. Motts physics department. There
he became acquainted with the electronic structure of metals and with
dislocations, a topic developed by Charles Frank. In 1952 he got a PhD.
from Bristol and a Doctorat dEtat in Paris in 1954 on the electronic
structure of impurities in metals.
In 1956, he became assistant professor at Paris University,
then full professor of Solid State Physics at Paris Sud in Orsay from
1959 to 1989. For thirty years he developed a research school in solid
state physics, authored a volume Les dislocations (Paris, Gauthier
Villars,1956, 2nd ed. Dislocations, Pergamon, 1964)
and more than 200 journal articles. His original contributions dealt with
various branches of solid state physics, in particular the electronic
structure of metallic alloys and of metals, the structure of surfaces
of dislocations and of clusters.
|Jacques Friedel chaired the Consultative Committee
to the French Government for scientific and technological research
(1978-1980), was the President of the Société française de physique
and of the European Physical Society. Among many responsabilities
in French scientific institutions, Jacques Friedel became the President
of the French Academy of Sciences (1992-1994).
- Interview with Jacques
- Letter from Jacques
Friedel to Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
This page was written by Bernadette Bensaude-Vicent.
It was last updated on 28 April 2004 by Arne