Shimon Reich - Obituary

(by Jacob Klein and Reshef Tenne, translated from Hebrew by Gershom Martin)

Professor Shimon Reich, of blessed memory, was a "talmid chacham" and a scientist in heart and soul. His scientific work stood out in that it never followed well-trodden paths, but again and again broke new ground with a surprising originality that combined concepts from completely different fields. A number of examples will be brought up below. Shimon made significant contributions to materials science, particularly in two areas: polymers and the superconductivity phenomenon.

Shimon worked on understanding the coexistence of different polymer phases. His work on phase separation, especially in thin layers, was the pioneering research in this area. This work, with his student Yachin Cohen (presently Dean of the Faculty of Chemical Engineering at the Technion) still today represents one of the foundation stones that led both to fundamental understanding and to practical applications of polymers, including in the area of nanotechnology -- a concept that did not exist when the original work was carried out. It should be noted that the French scientist Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (Nobel Laureate in Physics) was one of his enthusiastic admirers and often invited him to Paris.

In the area of superconductivity, especially worthy of note is his work in recent years on the surface superconductivity of tungsten bronzes. The surface superconductivity phenomenon was predicted theoretically over 40 years ago by the Nobelists Pierre-Gilles de Gennes and Vitaly Ginzburg, but experimental confirmation for that pheonomenon was lacking. Shimon found that mild doping of tungsten oxide by alkali metals generates a noncontiguous superconducting layer with a critical temperature in excess of 100 K. Owing to the high sensitivity of this layer to prepapration conditions and especially to humidity, and the resulting noncontiguousness of the layer, other researchers had difficulty reproducing this effect until recently. (It should be noted that the Swiss Nobel Laureate in Physics, Alex Mueller, endorsed Shimon's approach from the start.) Only recently papers were published that buttress this extraordinary observation, and the road was opened to an "orderly" investigation of this wonderous phenomenon.

His unique work on dating ancient lead-containing objects (in collaboration with Dr. Sariel Shalev) is likewise worthy of note. This work is based on the observation that, while lead is a superconductor, its corrosion products (lead oxide and lead carbonate) are insulators. By measuring the diamagnetic moment of the object, and weighing it, it was possible to extract the amount of material that had undergone oxidation. In this manner, Shimon fairly accurately dated objects from the Roman era and even before.

In a different paper, Shimon showed that it is possible to separate the components of air (oxygen and nitrogen) by making use of the fact that oxygen gas, which is paramagnetic, is repulsed by a superconducting membrane, while nitrogen gas is indifferent to the diamagnetic character of the membrane and thus passes it easily.

Another exciting experiment was the use of the solar oven for the preparation of superconductors with unique features (high critical current). Here, Shimon exploited the fact that in the solar oven it is possible to heat the oxide to the point of boiling, and then cool off the droplets rapidly by contact with silver particles. Processing of the material in this manner introduced nucleation centers which pinned the flux and avoided the disappearance of the superconducting phases at high current.

All these studies excelled in their exceptional originality of thought and in deep understanding of the link between the structure and composition of a material and its physical properties. These last days, Shimon was at the height of a fascinating experiment concerning the roots of superconductivity that he was sadly unable to complete. Despite his physical limitations in these last years, Shimon exhibited fecundity of thought and wonderful scientific creativity, and we can thus say that he passed away prematurely.

Shimon was also an amateur astronomer and an extremely knowledgeable stamp collector. Like in his scientific work, Shimon entered these subjects in depth and with great professionalism.

What's more, Shimon bothered to instill his knowledge into the next generations. His wonderful pedagogic abilities were demonstrated not just in his insightful publications in the area of science teaching but also in a number of scientific experimental demonstrations and lectures he would give to students from time to time.

Shimon was a devoted father and a family man par excellence. After the death of his spouse Klara (z"l), Shimon became attached to Yehudit Nir and they made their home in the Institute. He left behind three children and six grandchildren. The demise of Shimon Reich left a scientific and spiritual void among us, and we will miss him all.

Yehi zikhro barukh.