Paul Hagenmuller (August 3, 1921 – January 7, 2017) was a French chemist. Hagenmuller founded the Laboratoire de Chimie du Solide (Solid-State Chemistry Laboratory) of the

French National Centre for Scientific Research The French National Centre for Scientific Research (french: link=no, Centre national de la recherche scientifique, CNRS) is the French state research organisation and is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe. In 2016, it employed 31,63 ...

(CNRS) and he served as its Director until 1985. He is considered "one of the founders of

solid-state chemistry Solid-state chemistry, also sometimes referred as materials chemistry, is the study of the synthesis, structure, and properties of solid phase materials, particularly, but not necessarily exclusively of, non-molecular solids. It therefore has a str ...

Biography

Hagenmuller was born in 1921 in

Alsace Alsace (, ; ; Low Alemannic German/ gsw-FR, Elsàss ; german: Elsass ; la, Alsatia) is a cultural region and a territorial collectivity in eastern France, on the west bank of the upper Rhine next to Germany and Switzerland. In 2020, it had ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

. After studying in Strasbourg and

Clermont-Ferrand Clermont-Ferrand (, ; ; oc, label=Auvergnat, Clarmont-Ferrand or Clharmou ; la, Augustonemetum) is a city and commune of France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, with a population of 146,734 (2018). Its metropolitan area (''aire d'attract ...

, during

WW2 World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, Hagenmuller was imprisoned in the

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or sus ...

and Mittelbau-Dora concentration camps. During those years, he was involved in sabotaging German missiles. In 1950 he received his PhD from

Sorbonne University Sorbonne University (french: Sorbonne Université; la Sorbonne: 'the Sorbonne') is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sor ...

. Subsequently, he spent two years teaching as a lecturer (''

maître de conférences ''Maître'' (spelled ''Maitre'' according to post-1990 spelling rules) is a commonly used honorific for lawyers, judicial officers and notaries in France, Belgium, Switzerland and French-speaking parts of Canada. It is often written in its abbrev ...

'') in Vietnam. He returned to France in 1956 and was appointed Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at the

University of Rennes The University of Rennes is a public research university which will be officially reconstituted on 1 January 2023 and located in the city of Rennes, in Upper Brittany, France. The University of Rennes has been divided for almost 50 years, before ...

, working on "nonstoichiometry in vanadium and tungsten bronzes, two-dimensional oxyhalogenides, borides, and silicides, magnetic spinels". In 1961 he started working at the

University of Bordeaux The University of Bordeaux (French: ''Université de Bordeaux'') is a Lists of universities in France, public university based in Nouvelle-Aquitaine in Southern France, southwestern France. It has several campuses in the cities and towns of Bor ...

. Hagenmuller was noted for instigating cooperation between French researchers and researchers from the Soviet Union and Germany, his years in the concentration camps greatly affected his character. He also collaborated with noted scientists such as

John Goodenough John Bannister Goodenough ( ; born July 25, 1922) is an American materials scientist, a solid-state physicist, and a Nobel laureate in chemistry. He is a professor of Mechanical, Materials Science, and Electrical Engineering at the University ...

, Jacques Friedel and

Nevill Francis Mott Sir Nevill Francis Mott (30 September 1905 – 8 August 1996) was a British physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1977 for his work on the electronic structure of magnetic and disordered systems, especially amorphous semiconductors. ...

on insulator-to-metal transitions of vanadium oxides. In the 1970s, he started working with Neil Bartlett on metal

fluorides Fluoride (). According to this source, is a possible pronunciation in British English. is an inorganic, monatomic anion of fluorine, with the chemical formula (also written ), whose salts are typically white or colorless. Fluoride salts typi ...

. His most noted research discovery was the synthesis of and , which would later become important superconductor materials. His work on sodium-ion batteries received great interest years after it was published. In 2018 Hagenmuller remained the 4th most cited author from the Journal of Solid State Chemistry.

Awards and decorations

* Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 * Bundesverdienstkreuz (1985) *

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

(1988) * Gay-Lussac Humboldt Prize (1982) * Prix de la Fondation de la Maison de la Chimie (1986)

Bibliography

* * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hagenmuller, Paul French chemists University of Strasbourg alumni University of Clermont-Ferrand alumni Buchenwald concentration camp survivors Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp survivors 1921 births 2017 deaths Members of the French Academy of Sciences University of Paris alumni Recipients of the Legion of Honour Recipients of the Croix de Guerre (France) 20th-century French chemists Research directors of the French National Centre for Scientific Research University of Rennes faculty University of Bordeaux faculty Inorganic chemists Solid state chemists Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences