Dr Adrien Chauvet

School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Senior Lecturer in Physical Chemistry

Adrien Chauvet
Profile picture of Adrien Chauvet
a.chauvet@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 9414

Full contact details

Dr Adrien Chauvet
School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences
C94
Dainton Building
13 Brook Hill
Sheffield
S3 7HF
Profile

Adrien is a multidisciplinary spectroscopist. His specialisation is in ultrafast time-resolved spectroscopy. Adrien’s research is mainly based in Sheffield’s Lord Porter Laboratory; with projects in collaboration with the departments of Chemistry, Physics, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Chemical and Biological Engineering, and the School of Biosciences. And in his research, Adrien is dedicated to applying spectroscopy in innovative ways to tackle today’s grant challenges.

One of these grand challenges is the development of renewable energies. And beyond tackling it in his own lab, Adrien also joined the cross-faculty Energy Institute, as a management board member since 2023 as the ED&I lead, to engage and help fellow energy-dedicated ECRs develop their own research and careers.

Adrien is now establishing Hi-PLUS: Hi-Performance Lasers for Ultrafast Spectroscopy; a £1.4M EPSRC-funded user-base facility dedicated to the ultrafast characterisation of functional materials. This state-of-the-art facility is expected to be a regional hub for ultrafast science, with world-leading capabilities and direct links to national facilities.

Adrien holds a BSc in Material Sciences (2005) from the university of Strasbourg, France, as well as a Master (2008) and PhD (2012) in Biophysics from Purdue University, USA, under Prof. Sergei Savikhin’s supervision. He then moved to Switzerland in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) under a Marie-Curie postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Majed Chergui followed by a senior postdoctoral position at the University of Geneva (2015) with Prof. Jean-Pierre Wolf. He moved to Sheffield in 2016 as a lecturer of Physical Chemistry and was appointed senior lecturer in 2024.

Research interests

Adrien’s research is dedicated to answering society’s most pressing needs. The goal is to benefit from the fundamental knowledge of the materials intrinsic electronic and nuclear behaviour to inform the development of novel materials that are better suited to specific practical applications. Adrien is actively involved in various projects, reflective of his multidisciplinary approach to science:

  • Development of novel catalysts for green hydrogen production via hydrolysis as well as novel catalysts for hydrogen fuel cells
  • Development of sensors for soil-health analysis to achieve precision farming
  • Development of sensors to monitor greenhouse gas emission to inform their reduction
  • Characterisation of the natural elements involved in plant’s photosynthesis as well as their artificial counterparts for artificial photosynthesis
  • Characterisation of thin-film metal-oxides with antibacterial properties
  • Characterisation of novel anti-cancer agent for drug development
  • Crop-health monitoring via optical coherence tomography

Adrien is also invested in the field of Science & Religion. He benefits from his formal and informal religious and scientific education to explore the interplay between religion and the sciences. Acquainted of both systems of knowledge, he publishes and routinely engages the public on that topic.

Publications

Books

  • Chauvet A (2024) Les miracles du Coran : de l’analyse scientifiques à l’élévation spirituelle. France: Maison Ennour. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Chauvet A (2023) Scientifically Religious Using Science to Rationalize Faith. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Chauvet A (2020) De la science à la croyance : Raffermir sa foi par une approche scientifique. Paris: Maison Ennour. RIS download Bibtex download
  • Chauvet A (2019) De la science à la croyance: Raffermir sa foi par une approche scientifique. Paris: Maison d'Ennour (2019). RIS download Bibtex download

Journal articles

Chapters

Conference proceedings papers

Teaching interests

Physical Chemistry, Spectroscopy.

Teaching activities

Undergraduate and postgraduate taught modules

  • Mathematics for Chemists 1 (Level 1)
    This course covers the basic principles of mathematics needed for a degree in Chemistry.
  • UV-visible and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (Level 2)
    The aims of this segment are to introduce general principles that apply to spectroscopic analysis, and to describe in more detail the use of UV-visible spectroscopy and magnetic resonance spectroscopy in molecular structure determination. Emphasis is placed on understanding the basic physical principles underpinning the techniques.

Support Teaching:

  • Tutorials: Level 1 General Chemistry
  • Level 3 Literature Review

Laboratory Teaching:

  • Level 2 Physical Laboratories
  • Level 4 Research Project