About Us
Founded in 1944, the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science develops philanthropic support for the Weizmann Institute in Israel, and advances its mission of science for the benefit of humanity.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-november-2015/
Nov 24, 2015...
Capturing a single photon from a pulse of light: Devices based on the Weizmann Institute model may be the backbone of future quantum communications systems
At the Weizmann Institute of Science, researchers have managed to “pluck” a single photon – one particle of light – out of a pulse of light. The findings of this research, which appeared November 24 in Nature Photonics, bear both fundamental and practical significance: Light is the workhorse of today’s communication systems, and single photons are likely to be the backbone of future quantum communication systems. In addition, say the scientists, the apparatus they have devised will spur further research into the fundamental particle nature of light.
Dec 10, 2019...
A “river” of electrons flowing in a graphene channel. The viscosity generated by the repulsion between electrons (red balls) causes them to flow with a parabolic current density, illustrated here as a white foam wave-front
REHOVOT, ISRAEL—December 10, 2019—We often speak of electrons “flowing” through materials, but in fact, they do not normally move like a liquid. However, such “hydrodynamic” electron flow had long been predicted – and now, Weizmann Institute of Science physicists have managed, with the help of a unique technique, to image electrons flowing similarly to how water moves through a pipe. This is the first time such “liquid electron flow” has been visualized, and it has vital implications for future electronic devices.
Mar 02, 2020...
To heat a slice of pizza, you probably wouldn’t consider first chilling it in the fridge. But a theoretical study suggests that cooling, as a first step before heating, may be the fastest way to warm up certain materials. In fact, such precooling could lead sometimes to exponentially faster heating, two physicists calculate in a study accepted in Physical Review Letters.
The concept is similar to the Mpemba effect, the counterintuitive — and controversial — observation that hot water sometimes freezes faster than cold water (SN: 1/6/17). Scientists still don’t agree on why the Mpemba effect occurs, and it’s difficult to reproduce the effect consistently. The new study is “a way of thinking of effects like the Mpemba effect from a different perspective,” says physicist Andrés Santos of Universidad de Extremadura in Badajoz, Spain, who was not involved with the research.
Aug 01, 2019...
What is your field of study?
I did my doctorate in high-energy physics – particle physics – and my research is on astroparticles.
Could you explain to laypeople what that means?
As we all learned in high school, we are made of molecules, atoms, protons, neutrons and electrons. But we can actually go down to a more precise resolution because the protons and neutrons are composed of smaller particles, called quarks. And there are also a great many more particles that are created at very high energies. With particle accelerators – if they are particle accelerators such as the sun, gamma-ray bursts and supernovas –
Dec 12, 2012...
Dr. Komargodski is one of three promising young theoretical physicists to be awarded the New Horizons in Physics Prize.
The 2013 New Horizons in Physics Prize, awarded by the Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation, has been given to three promising young researchers, including the Weizmann Institute’s Dr. Zohar Komargodski. Each of the laureates will receive $100,000. The Foundation also announced that leaders of the ATLAS experiment, one of the two experimental groups at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN to have discovered a particle that appears to be the Higgs boson, will split a Special Fundamental Physics Prize (which totals $3,000,000) with those of the second experimental group, CMS, together with the head of the LHC accelerator project. Several Weizmann Institute researchers have played prominent roles in the ATLAS experiment, along with physicists from the Technion and Tel Aviv University. Last year, one of the inaugural Fundamental Physics Prizes went to Prof. Nathan (Nati) Seiberg, a Weizmann alumnus who is at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton.
Jul 23, 2015...
Six of eight atomic ions trappedin a quantum state in the lab of Dr. Roee Ozeri
As large objects, we’re limited to existing in one place, and one state, at a time. Quantum particles have a much more interesting existence: According to quantum theory, they can be in different places, in different states, doing different things – all at the same time.
Computers based on quantum mechanics might complete, reasonably quickly, calculations that would take today’s computers a million years. One necessary step to creating such a quantum computer is to design a switch that can be in two states at once (i.e., zero and one). Scientists in the Institute’s Faculty of Physics are on the cutting edge of this field. Prof. Ady Stern has invented a method to check whether a type of system based on the movement of composite particles – arising from the collective behavior of electrons in a magnetic field – can be one such switch, called a topological quantum switch.
Feb 24, 2020... In October 2019, Google announced that its quantum computer, Sycamore, had done a calculation in three minutes and 20 seconds that would have taken the world’s fastest supercomputer 10,000 years. “Quantum supremacy,” Google claimed for itself. We now have a quantum computer, it was saying, capable of performing calculations that no regular, “classical” computer is capable of doing in a reasonable time.
Jun 08, 2017...
A simulation based on models used by aerospace engineers revealed the existence of shockwaves in the beams due to interactions with the “warm” skimmers
The tiny cone-shaped “skimmers” used in experiments looking for exotic chemical-quantum phenomena resemble the intake mechanisms of aircraft engines, and they perform similar functions: each directs the flow of gas – the engine intake controls the supply of air for burning fuel, and the “skimmer” creates beams of cold flying atoms or molecules. While skimmers have been a necessary component in atomic and molecular-beam experiments for decades, they were also known to impose a fundamental limit on the number of particles one could pack into the beam. However, Prof. Edvardas Narevicius and his team in the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Department of Chemical Physics have now revealed a simple way to overcome this limit.
May 08, 2019... Meet physicist Prof. Erez Berg, the 2019 Physical Sciences & Engineering Laureate of the Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists. Prof. Berg has conducted influential studies to gain insights into quantum materials—materials whose electronic properties cannot be characterized by traditional physics. His research holds major promise for devising new ways of storing and manipulating quantum information, with implications for a new computing age, as well as next-generation electronics, superconducting power lines, and MRI technologies. The Blavatnik Awards, presented by The Blavatnik Family Foundation, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities (IASH), recognize early-career scientists and engineers in Israel for both their extraordinary achievements and promise for future discoveries. Of the three 2019 laureates, two were from the Weizmann Institute; the other Weizmann winner was Dr. Michal Rivlin of the Department of Neurobiology. Video courtesy of the New York Academy of Sciences.
https://www.weizmann-usa.org/news-media/news-releases/science-tips-july-2007/
Jul 26, 2007...
A New Technique May Speed the Development of Molecular Electronics
Often, things can be improved by a little “contamination.” Steel, for example, is iron with a bit of carbon mixed in. To produce materials for modern electronics, small amounts of impurities are introduced into silicon—a process called doping. It is these impurities that enable electricity to flow through the semiconductor and allow designers to control the electronic properties of the material.
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