Centers

The Braun Center for Submicron Research, at the Weizmann Institute of Science, was founded in order to study and develop submicron semiconductor structures working in the mesoscopic regime. In the heart of this Center are three MBE laboratories with a task to develop and produce the purest and the most complex GaAs and InAs based semiconductors structures (heterostructures and nanowires). Nanostructure fabrication is provided by an electron beam writing (EBL) system, capable of producing less than 10 nm wide features. Two optical lithography laboratories enable patterning down to ~1 micrometer. UHV evaporators, UHV plasma etching and deposition tools, a SEM with less than 10 angstroms resolution, are some of the the fabrication tools. Low temperature measurements are done in dilution refrigerators, and in He4 and He3 systems. An optical laboratory of continuous and pulsed light allows optical characterization.

The Maurice and Gabriella Goldschleger Center for Nanophysics was established in 2001. Fueled by the success of the research on Mesoscopic Physics, at its establishment the main goal of this center was to promote theoretical research in Nanophysics at WIS. This was done by funding student and postdoc fellowships, and by supporting physics students who travel to workshops and schools in this field. An important priority of the center is enhancing collaboration between physicists at WIS and their peers abroad, it therefore widens its activity to other fields of physics and support from the Center plays today an important role in almost all the research in physics at the Institute. The center provides funds for visitors and for organizing workshops in physics. Most of the activity of the Center is related to research projects based on theorists’ activity in the Faculty of Physics, but support has also been lent to appropriate projects in experimental physics.