ELStiR Journal of Magnetism and Magnetic Materials 129 (1994) ix-x

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Symposium in memory of Remy Lemaire:

Preface

Magnetism of Rare Earth Intermetallic Alloys

Grenoble, July 2nd 1993

Remy Lemaire was born in Lorraine in 1937. When he was still very young his father was killed in the war, and Remy was brought up as a ‘pupille de la nation’, which means roughly that he was a war orphan adopted by the state. He was justifi- ably proud of the fact that despite this inauspi- cious start in life he succeeded in acquiring excel- lent scientific qualifications and then in becoming a major physicist. He went to study in Grenoble and in 1961 qualified as an engineer. He joined the CEA neutron diffraction laboratory and suc- ceeded in preparing and studying high quality rare earth metal intermetallic compounds; he was among the handful of pioneers who initiated the work on what were then very novel systems. He built up a world class research group which deter- mined basic crystal and magnetic structures and which made important contributions to the un- derstanding of these complex and fascinating ma- terials. Remy was recruited by the CNRS, and went on to be President of the CNRS National Solid State Committee, to be Director of the Louis NCel Magnetism Laboratory, and to be Chairman of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Magnetism Commis- sion. He was Advisory Editor of JMMM and was associated with the Journal over a long period.

His infectious enthusiasm inspired the genera- tions of students that worked with him, many of whom went on to become major scientists in their turn. He believed intensely in the benefits to the community of science in general and he was

convinced that magnetism in particular was an exceptionally rich and formative discipline. He was a fervent internationalist who built up not only invaluable collaborations between France and other industrial countries through a network of personal contacts, but also did all he could to transfer scientific knowledge to the third world. He considered scientific training to be of great importance, and in 1991 he moved to the Paris region to help create a new University at Evry.

On September 1st 1992 Remy, his wife Janine and their son Pierre were killed in a car accident in Namibia, where Pierre worked as an engineer.

A Symposium was held at the Louis Ntel Magnetism Laboratory in Grenoble on the sec- ond of July 1993 in memory of Remy Lemaire. This Symposium was centred on the field which

0304-8853/94/$07.00 8 1994 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved

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had been his life work - the intermetallic com- pounds of rare earths. The fundamental proper- ties of these materials continue to be the subject of intense research effort in many centres across the world, and their applications in hard magnets, in magneto-optic recording and in other domains are now the basis of a billion dollar industry. The present Special Issue is a collection of the texts of

the invited talks which were given at the collo- quium; they cover both basic and applied re- search and form an overview by world experts of the state of this extremely active field.

Ian Campbell

September 1993