Project portfolio

Designer: Benjamin Pasmantirer

TGC (Thin Gap Chamber) and sTGC (small-strip TGC) we designed, Under the leadership of Prof. Giora Mikenberg, are detectors in the ATLAS experiment at CERN made, among other things, to discover the Higgs boson. The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, by the ATLAS and CMS experiments, was a success. It opened a landscape of possibilities in the study of Higgs boson properties, Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and the Standard Model in general, as well as new avenues in probing new physics beyond the Standard Model.

Prof. Giora Mikenberg lead the TGC and sTGC projects at WIS for many years.

Under his leadership, thousands of detectors were built at the WIS ATLAS unit and assembled in 6 big wheels (BW) and 2 small wheels (SW) in ATLAS.

Published Papers:

1. The ATLAS Experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, 2008
2. On the Path to New Physics, 2012

If you want to explore deeper, you can download the 3D Chamber PDF file. (Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view objects in 3D)

Designer: Benjamin Pasmantirer

In Victor Malka’s lab, laser-plasma proton acceleration was investigated with a target composed of a gas layer and a thin foil.

The research proposes a new approach for coupling the laser to the plasma using a target with a unique density profile. The target consists of helium gas, exiting through a slit nozzle of dimensions 0.5 mm × 5 mm, several hundred microns long, followed by a thin 5 μm stainless steel foil. A homemade gas valve was used in combination with an electronic pressure regulator. The combined gas-foil target has proven to be a versatile platform for studying laser-plasma proton acceleration.

A Thomson parabola spectrometer is used for the detection of accelerated charged particles. The particles enter through a 0.5 mm pinhole, get deflected by magnetic and electric fields, and impact a Lanex scintillating screen placed perpendicular to the laser beam direction. Maximum kinetic energy of the particles can then be extracted from the resulting illuminated curves on the screen.

The gas valve, slit nozzle, stainless steel foil wheel holder, and the Thomson parabola spectrometer were designed by the Instrument Design unit.

Published Papers:

1. Levy, Dan, et al. "Laser-plasma proton acceleration with a combined gas-foil target." New Journal of Physics 22.10 (2020): 103068.

Designer: Lilia Goffer

M.E. Probe II, we designed, under the leadership of Prof. Oren Tal, to allow mechanically controllable break junction at cryogenic temperature.

This technique is used to analyze the structural and transport properties of atomic-scale conductors thoroughly.

A metal wire or a thin metal strip with a narrow part at the center is attached to a flexible and insulating substrate in a break junction setup. This structure is placed in a vacuum chamber, which is pumped and cooled to 4.2K. The wire is broken by controlled bending of its supporting substrate to expose two fresh and clean electrode apexes in cryogenic vacuum conditions.

Here you can read more about the experimental techniques.

Published Papers:

1. Conductance saturation in a series of highly transmitting molecular junctions
2. A molecule in a circle
3. The upper limit

If you want to explore deeper, you can download the 3D M.E.Probe PDF file. (Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view objects in 3D)

Designer: Lilia Goffer

The synchrotron Ice Box we designed, under the leadership of Prof. Leslie Leiserowitz, allows it to investigate the phenomenon of ice nucleation from super cooled water, which has far-reaching ramifications for the living and nonliving world.

The Ice Box makes it possible to induce nucleation of ice from millimeter-sized super cooled water drops illuminated by ns-optical laser pulses well below the ionization threshold—use of particular laser beam configurations and polarizations employing a 100 ps synchrotron x-ray pulse.

The experimental setup comprises a cooling chamber and an optical and pulsed x-ray diffraction setup at the ESRF x-ray synchrotron beamline ID09. The temperature of the chamber is controlled by using two thermoelectric Peltier coolers. At each side of the chamber, there is a viewport. On the top cover, another flange includes a rubber septum that allows penetration of a syringe needle for deposition of a water drop onto a glass slide. The glass slides are coated with a 5 nm thick monolayer of perfluoro-polyether-silane covalently bonded to the glass, making it hydrophobic with a 110° contact angle. A Pt1000 temperature sensor is used for the temperature measurement and positioned on a glass slide close to the hydrophobic coated glass slide. An internal copper cage placed on the chamber floor covers the glass slide to improve the temperature homogeneity of the atmosphere surrounding the water drop.

Published Papers:

1. Evidence for laser-induced homogeneous oriented ice nucleation revealed via pulsed x-ray diffraction
2. Freezing with Lasers Creates Aligned Ice Crystals

If you want to explore deeper, you can download the Synchrotron Ice Box PDF file. (Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to view objects in 3D)