Twenty-year history and current status of LIMMS: CNRS-UTokyo joint laboratory

LIMMS, Laboratory for Integrated Micro Mechatronic Systems, is a joint laboratory between French CNRS and The University of Tokyo with special support from JSPS (Japan Society for the Promotion of Science). CNRS researchers and French postdoctoral fellows supported by JSPS come to LIMMS and perform research with their Japanese counterparts in 16 hosting laboratories. They typically stay around two years. Their total number exceeds 130 from the creation of LIMMS in 1995. They have written 221 journal papers and presented 327 conference papers. The collaboration was extended from French-Japanese to EU-Japanese in 2011 when we obtained an EU-FP7 project for 4 years. Latest development of LIMMS aims to create a similar joint laboratory in France. This paper overviews its historical development and current status. Two examples of current research, the molecular tweezers and the TEM in-situ measurement system, are also described.