The Aimé-Cotton laboratory was created in 1927 as an annex to the Physical Research Laboratory of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Paris, on the occasion of the construction of the Large Electromagnet of the Academy of Sciences at Meudon-Bellevue, of which Aimé Cotton, at the origin of the project in 1914, solemnly announced the completion on July 9, 1928.

[1] First director of the laboratory of the Grand electromagnet de Bellevue, Aimé Cotton's successors in 1941 were Gaston Dupouy then, in 1950, Pierre Jacquinot.

[4] From the conference on “interferometric spectrometry” organized in Bellevue in 1957 by P. Jacquinot, the LAC played the role of a nursery for the dissemination of this new spectrometric technique.

Under the direction of Robert Chabbal, the LAC moved in 1967 to the Orsay campus of the Paris-Sud University, on the edge of the Moulon plateau.

This unit was dissolved on December 31, 2019, to make way for two “formations de recherche en évolution” (FRE): one taking the name Aimé-Cotton laboratory and the other LuMIn (Light, Matter and Interfaces).