The vast majority of graduate students have a research activity using their skills as physicists. With skills in plasma physics and a solid expertise on the various technologies implemented in the large research infrastructures, the graduates of the master’s program GI-PLATO are able to occupy positions as physicists, research engineer, design and implementation engineers, project managers, whether in the public sector within large research organizations or higher education institutions or in the private sector, within companies or industrial groups with a strong research and development activity:
- national research organisations: CEA, CNRS, ONERA
- private companies: AREVA, CANBERRA, ALSTOM, AIR-LIQUIDE, THALES, NEXANS, COMEX, EADS, ITHPP, …
Internships
The internships have taken place in a wide variety of laboratories as indicated by the table below. Here are some indicative figures :
- 55 % in a university/CNRS lab
- 15 % in a CEA lab
- 17 % out of France
Future of graduate students
Their future is strongly correlated to their end-of-study internship which opens their minds to the reality of the research field. Themes targeted by graduate students are:
- plasma physics, either neutral plasmas or beams: theory, simulation, experiment
- cryomagnetism
- power electrical enginnering
- instrumentation and metrology based on waves, particles and optics for plasma diagnostics
- nuclear engineering: materials, radioprotection, nuclear measures
- computing and numerical methods: simulation and modelling of complex systems.
Overview of the last graduate classes:
- 12 % got a permanent job after mater graduation : teacher or engineer
- 63 % prepare a PhD
The laboratories and companies where the students go either for their master’r program internship or after graduating from are listed below :
| Country | Site | Laboratory – Company | ||
| Paris area | ||||
| Université Paris-Saclay, Orsay | Institut de Physique des deux infinis Irène Joliot Curie (IJCLab) | |||
| Institut de physique nucléaire d’Orsay (IPN) | ||||
| Laboratoire de l’Accélérateur Linéaire (LAL) | ||||
| Laboratoire de physique des gaz et des plasmas (LPGP) | ||||
| Ecole Polytechnique (X), Palaiseau | Laboratoire des Solides Irradiés (LSI) | |||
| Laboratoire de physique des plasmas (LPP) | ||||
| Laboratoire d’utilisation des lasers intenses (LULI) | ||||
| École nationale supérieure de techniques avancées (ENSTA), Palaiseau | Laboratoire d’Optique Appliquée (LOA) | |||
| Institut d’optique Graduate School (IOGS), Palaiseau | Laboratoire Charles Fabry (LCF) | |||
| CEA/Paris-Saclay, Gif | Département des Accélérateurs, de Cryogénie et de Magnétisme (DACM) | |||
| Laboratoire Interactions, Dynamiques et Lasers (LIDYL) | ||||
| CEA/Bruyères | ||||
| SOLEIL, Gif | ||||
| IOGS, Orsay | Startup ITEOX | |||
| Université de Créteil | Labo inter-universitaire des systèmes atmosphériques (LISA) | |||
| Vanves | OPTOPRIM SAS | |||
| Lisses | Amplitude technologies | |||
| Hors IdF | ||||
| Caen (14) | Grand Accélérateur National d’Ions Lourds (GANIL) | |||
| Université d’Angers (49) | Laboratoire de photonique d’Angers (LPHIA) | |||
| Campus CNRS, Orléans (45) | Institut de Combustion Aérothermique Réactivité et Environnement (ICARE) | |||
| CEA/CESTA, Le Barp (33) | Département des lasers de puissance (DLP) | |||
| Département DGSA | ||||
| Grenoble (36) | European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) | |||
| Laboratoire National des Champs Magnétiques Intenses (LNCMI) | ||||
| CEA/Cadarache (13) | Institut de recherches sur la fusion magnétique (IRFM) | |||
| Aix-Marseille Université, Luminy (13) | laboratoire Lasers Plasmas et Procédés Photoniques (LP3) | |||
| Université de Sophia-Antipolis, Nice (06) | Astrophysique relativiste, théories, expériences, métrologie, instrumentation, signaux (ARTEMIS) | |||
| Europe | ||||
| University of Lund (Suède) | ||||
| Cambridge (UK) | Centre for Theoretical Cosmology | |||
| Hamburg (Allemagne) | Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY) | |||
| Villigen (Suisse) | Institut Paul Scherrer (PSI) | |||
| Genève (Suisse) | Conseil européen pour la recherche nucléaire (CERN) | |||
| Pisa (Italie) | Virgo – European Gravitational Observatory (EGO) | |||
| Barcelona (Espagne) | Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO) | |||
| Hors Europe | ||||
| Princeton (USA) | Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) | |||
| University of Berkeley (USA) | Center for Beam Physics (CBP) | |||
| Osaka (Japon) | Kodama Lab | |||
| University of Auckland (Australie) | Physics department |
PhD
For those who wish to do so, the career can start by preparing a PhD thesis in plasma physics. A large number of laboratories, which are associated with the national federation “Education to science of fusion and hot plasmas”, offer PhD opportunities. Fundings for PhD activity are diverse (cf. informations from the French Ministry for higher education and research) :
- doctoral contract proposed by doctoral schools and funded by the French Ministry for higher education and research (public law contracts)
- contracts by Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)
- contracts by Office national d’études et de recherches aérospatiales (ONERA)
- contracts by Centre national d’études spatiales (CNES)
- Industrial agreements for training through research (CIFRE)
- contracts by Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) (ex BDI)
- funding by France region (Ile de France, Aquitaine, …),
- funding by federative entities « laboratoires d’excellence » (LABEX), etc….