Jacques Villain

Jacques Villain ([vilɛ̃]; born March 13, 1934) is a French physicist. He received his PhD at the École normale supérieure, did research at the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, held, from 1984 to 1988, the position of a director at the Jülich Research Centre in Germany, and he is, since 1996, directeur des recherches at the Commissariat à l'énergie atomique. In the year 2000 he was elected as a member of the Académie des sciences.

His main research areas are in Statistical Physics, Solid State Physics, und Surface Science. He is best known for his excellent contributions to the theory of crystal growth, surface dynamics, low-dimensional magnetism, as well as spatially modulated, commensurate and incommensurate structures in solids.