Jean Philibert - Biography#
After physics and chemistry studies at the University of Paris, Jean Philibert joined the French Institute for Steel Research, where he studied martensitic transformation under the supervision of Prof.. Charles Crussard.
He was later entrusted with the management of the first “Electron Probe Microanalyser” , a
prototype built by Prof. Raimond Castaing. He developed many original applications in several
fields of metallurgy and developed a basic formula for the quantitative analysis ( ZAF method).
This instrument offered quite new ways to study diffusion in metals and ceramics. J. Philibert,
mainly with Dr. Yves Adda, investigated interdiffusion processes in several metallic and non
metallic systems. This close collaboration led to a published large book: La Diffusion dans les
Solides (1966).
Jean Philibert was later appointed a professorship at the University Paris‐sud, Orsay campus,
to organize new degrees in Materials Science and Engineering education and simultaneously
he launched with the CNRS a laboratory under the heading of Materials Physics. With his
collaborators, he studied the relation between diffusion processes and high temperature
mechanical properties in non metallic materials, especially oxides and molecular liquid
crystals. Determination of oxygen diffusion was performed by means of oxygen isotopic
exchange. Later, especially with Dr. François d’Heurle, he studied the formation of compounds
by interdiffusion in the solid state.
Prof.. Philibert is the author of more than two hundred papers . Besides the above quoted
book, he also published “Diffusion et Transport de Matière dans les Solides” (185), later
translated in English by Dr Steve Rothman under the title “ Atom Movements: diffusion and
mass transport in Solids”.
He is also the co‐author of a text‐book for undergraduate students “Métallurgie Générale“ (1969) , and later “Métallurgie, du minerai au matériau”, that covers the whole field from extractive metallurgy to corrosion, including physical metallurgy, structural transformations, and mechanical metallurgy: This book received several editions.
Jean Philibert was awarded the 1999 Acta Metallurgica Gold Medal.
