François has been a professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Montreal since the year 2000. He specializes in the synthesis and characterization of semiconductors and amorphous materials, particularly through ion beam analysis: by bouncing particles produced by an accelerator, one can identify the atoms that make up a sample and their distribution in depth at the nanometer scale. This is very useful for determining whether thin-film compounds synthesized for a wide range of applications, from microelectronics to wear-resistant coatings for aircraft reactors, have the desired values. In recent years, he has been interested in the fabrication of low-noise mirrors, particularly in the context of gravitational wave detectors (GWD). Indeed, in several ultra-high precision systems such as quantum computers, atomic clocks, and GWDs, sensitivity is limited by the fact that the materials of the mirrors can reconfigure or their properties can otherwise fluctuate, causing noise. His group is therefore searching for materials that minimize these phenomena while meeting the many other constraints imposed by these applications.