The Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for Astrophysics promotes research in theoretical and experimental astrophysics, cosmology, and related topics including observational astronomy, computational astrophysics, and experimental particle astrophysics. In addition, it supports collaborations with academic institutions in Israel and abroad. The center holds an annual astrophysics workshop program with leading international experts to further its research projects through discussion and examination of the latest findings.
Prof. Eli Waxman, Director
The Nella and Leon Benoziyo Center for High Energy Physics focuses on understanding how particles get their mass, an historical challenge for physicists. Scientists at the center are key players in the global effort to solve the riddle of the source of mass through the search for the elusive Higgs boson in the gigantic Large Hadron Collider (LHC) particle accelerator at the European Organization of Nuclear Research (CERN) in Switzerland. Benoziyo Center researchers developed a unique particle detector that is now installed in the ATLAS research station at CERN, and another team is overseeing the statistical methods used to interpret the data collected in the ATLAS project.
Prof. Giora Mikenberg, Director
The Crown Photonics Center promotes the study of light and its applications. The Weizmann Institute is a global leader in basic photonics research; scientists in four well-established labs conduct much-acclaimed investigations into the fields of atomic optics, Bose-Einstein Condensation, ultra-fast optics, and quantum optics. Photonics has given rise to the discovery of gamma rays, ultraviolet light, infrared light, microwaves, and radio waves, with practical and economically important technological applications ranging from biomedicine to homeland security. Potential future applications include computing, medical diagnostics, imaging, on-chip data communication, and laser defense.
Prof. Yaron Silberberg, Director
The Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Center for Submicron Research explores the limits of the miniaturization of electronic devices. This research concerns the “twilight zone” of physics, the mesoscopic realm which lies between the macroscopic world (visible to the eye, or under an optical microscope) and the microscopic world of individual atoms that exhibit coherent electrical and optical characteristics at sufficiently low temperatures. Center researchers pursue the design, material growth, fabrication, and characterization of small electronic systems, referred to as quantum electronics. After growing layers of semiconductor crystals no more than a few atoms in thickness, Institute scientists until recently held the world’s record for purity of gallium arsenide crystals. These submicron semiconductors may prove essential for a new type of quantum electronics, leading to the development of much smaller and faster computer chips for tomorrow’s advanced electronics industry.
Prof. Mordehai Heiblum, Director
The Clore Center for Biological Physics supports research activities that use the methods of physics and physical chemistry to study biological systems. Under the center’s auspices, biologists, chemists, computer scientists, and physicists work together to explore a variety of fundamental issues in biology, and develop new approaches to address them. Research projects funded by the center have included investigations of the neurological underpinnings of post-traumatic stress disorder, measuring the exact mass of protein subunits, and investigations of genes that are naturally primed to kill bacteria in order to inform the understanding of drug-resistant pathogens.
Prof. Michal Neeman, Director
The Center for Experimental Physics fosters research in all areas of experimental physics, ranging from the most basic aspects of particle physics (usually carried in major facilities abroad), through experimental studies (carried out at Weizmann laboratories), of basic material properties such as semiconductors and superconductors. Its research also focuses on atomic, molecular, plasma and optical physics and interdisciplinary studies of the physics of biological systems.
Prof. Yosef Nir, Director
The Maurice and Gabriela Goldschleger Center for Nanophysics advances theoretical and experimental research in nanophysics and is fueled by the success of the research on mesoscopic physics, a sub-discipline of condensed matter physics which deals with materials of an intermediate length scale. The scale of such materials can be described as being between the size of a quantity of atoms, such as a molecule, and of materials measuring microns.
Prof. Mordehai Heiblum, Director
The Albert Einstein Minerva Center for Theoretical Physics fosters high-level research in theoretical physics, while promoting International collaborations of Israeli theorists, with emphasis on those with German scientists. Research ranges from the most abstract aspects of string theory, through astrophysics, to down-to-earth problems in optics and statistical and condensed-matter physics.
Prof. Mordechai Milgrom
The Minerva Center for Nonlinear Physics of Complex Systems supports research in the field of nonlinear dynamics and its applications in various fields. The main topics of research include a systematic study of turbulent flows, theoretical and experimental investigations of pattern formations, and pattern selection and variability. These studies are applied to specific problems taken from astrophysics, geophysics and biology. The manifestations of classical chaos in the quantum domain are studied, with applications to nuclear, atomic, molecular and solid state (mesoscopic) physics.
Prof. Itamar Procaccia, Director