Yigal Meir (20 November 1957) is the Graham Beck professor of Quantum Science and Technology at

Ben Gurion University Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) ( he, אוניברסיטת בן-גוריון בנגב, ''Universitat Ben-Guriyon baNegev'') is a public research university in Beersheba, Israel. Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has five campuses: the ...

, specializing in

condensed matter Condensed matter physics is the field of physics that deals with the macroscopic and microscopic physical properties of matter, especially the solid and liquid phases which arise from electromagnetic forces between atoms. More generally, the su ...

; in particular

mesoscopic physics Mesoscopic physics is a subdiscipline of condensed matter physics that deals with materials of an intermediate size. These materials range in size between the nanoscale for a quantity of atoms (such as a molecule) and of materials measuring micr ...

, disordered systems and

strongly correlated material Strongly correlated materials are a wide class of compounds that include insulators and electronic materials, and show unusual (often technologically useful) electronic and magnetic properties, such as metal-insulator transitions, heavy fermion ...

s. Among his achievements is the derivation of the Meir-Wingreen Formula, and solving the 0.7 anomaly puzzle in

quantum point contact A quantum point contact (QPC) is a narrow constriction between two wide electrically conducting regions, of a width comparable to the electronic wavelength (nano- to micrometer). The importance of QPC lies in the fact that they prove quantisation o ...

Career

Meir was educated in

Tel Aviv University Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...

, where he obtained a PhD in theoretical condensed matter physics under the supervision of

Amnon Aharony Amnon Aharony (Hebrew: אמנון אהרוני; born: 7 January 1943) is an Israeli Professor (Emeritus) of Physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University, Israel and in the Physics Department of Ben Gurion University of t ...

and

Yoseph Imry Yoseph Imry (Hebrew: יוסף אמרי; born 23 February 1939 – 29 May 2018) was an Israeli physicist. He was best known for taking part in the foundation of mesoscopic physics, a relatively new branch of condensed matter physics. It is conce ...

. He held postdoctoral positions at MIT (1989–91), with Patrick Lee, and at the

University of California at Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the Un ...

(1991–94), with

Walter Kohn Walter Kohn (; March 9, 1923 – April 19, 2016) was an Austrian-American theoretical physicist and theoretical chemist. He was awarded, with John Pople, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1998. The award recognized their contributions to the unde ...

. In 1994 he joined the physics department at

, Beersheba, Israel as a faculty member. He holds a visiting position at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

. Meir has published more than 120 papers in refereed journals. Early in his career, he concentrated on transport through

quantum dots Quantum dots (QDs) are semiconductor particles a few nanometres in size, having optical and electronic properties that differ from those of larger particles as a result of quantum mechanics. They are a central topic in nanotechnology. When the ...

, explaining the Coulomb oscillations in the measured electric current. In the process he derived the Meir-Wingreen formula for the electric current through interaction system, a now textbook formula. Later on he made numerous contributions to the field of transport in disordered systems, in particular to the issue of phase transitions in such media, such as the metal-insulator transition in two-dimensions and the

Superconductor Insulator Transition The Superconductor Insulator Transition is an example of a quantum phase transition, whereupon tuning some parameter in the Hamiltonian, a dramatic change in the behavior of the electrons occurs. The nature of how this transition occurs is disp ...

in thin films, and to the field of strong correlation effects in mesoscopic devices, in the particular the manifestation of the

Kondo effect In physics, the Kondo effect describes the scattering of conduction electrons in a metal due to magnetic impurities, resulting in a characteristic change i.e. a minimum in electrical resistivity with temperature. The cause of the effect was fir ...

. In the latter context he suggested a solution for the long standing puzzle of the 0.7 anomaly – the observation of a step in the conductance of

s, around the value of 0.7 2e²/h (where e is the

electron charge The elementary charge, usually denoted by is the electric charge carried by a single proton or, equivalently, the magnitude of the negative electric charge carried by a single electron, which has charge −1 . This elementary charge is a fundame ...

and h the

Planck constant The Planck constant, or Planck's constant, is a fundamental physical constant of foundational importance in quantum mechanics. The constant gives the relationship between the energy of a photon and its frequency, and by the mass-energy equivale ...

), in addition to the expected integer steps. This explanation is based on an emergence of a quasi-localized state in the

, associated with slow electrons above the point contact barrier, an observation that has been verified experimentally. In recent years he has extended his research to the field of

biology Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

, together with his colleague

Ned Wingreen Ned S. Wingreen is a theoretical physicist and the Howard A. Prior Professor of the Life Sciences at Princeton University. He is a member of the Department of Molecular Biology and of the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics, where he i ...

from Princeton University. Meir has been a fellow of the

American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...

since 2003. In 2008 he won the Ben Gurion University President Award for Outstanding Scientific Achievement, during the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the independence of the

State of Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

. He served as the president of the Israeli Physical Society from 2011 to 2014.

References

External links

*
List of Publications in Google-Scholar

Webpage of the Israeli Physical Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Meir, Yigal 1957 births Living people Israeli physicists Academic staff of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Tel Aviv University alumni Theoretical physicists Jewish physicists Fellows of the American Physical Society