World-Famous Physicist Arkady Aronov Remembered at Weizmann Institute Physics Symposium

07.01.1996

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New developments in solid state physics will be discussed this week (January 8-12) at the Arkady Aronov Memorial Symposium to be held in Zichron Ya'akov, near Haifa, under the aegis of the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Heraeus Foundation, Germany.

Some 140 invited participants from 15 countries, including France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Russia and the United States, will dwell upon scientific subjects that were in the domain of interests of the late Prof. Aronov, a world- famous physicist.

A full day of the conference will be devoted to mesoscopic physics, a new field of research co-founded by Aronov. Mesoscopic systems are ultrasmall semiconductors with unique physical properties, expected to form the basis of computers and other electronic devices in the 21st century. Significant contributions in this field have been made by Weizmann Institute physicists.

Other discussions will focus on high-temperature superconductors, quantum solid state physics and the study of interactions among electrons in solids, subjects with both theoretical importance and potential practical applications.

The Russian-born Aronov belonged to a select group of scientists who left a salient mark on modern solid state physics. He made seminal contributions to the understanding of electronic properties of disordered conductors, including numerous predictions subsequently confirmed by hundreds of experimental physicists worldwide.

Aronov spent long periods at the Weizmann Institute in the early 1990s and joined the Institute staff in May 1994. His sudden passing on November 13, 1994, at 55, was deeply grieved by his Weizmann colleagues, many of whom had been strongly influenced by his work and came to love and respect him as a person.

Prof. Aronov was a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and served on the advisory committee of the International Center of Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy. He was the recipient of the 1992 Alexander von Humboldt Award, the 1993 Hewlett-Packard Award of the European Physical Society and the 1994 Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Award.

In appreciation of Aronov's contributions to research in Germany and Italy, the opening session of the Symposium will be attended by representatives of these countries' embassies.

The Symposium's organizing committee includes Profs. Alexander Finkelstein, Yuval Gefen, Yoseph Imry and Yehoshua Levinson, all of the Institute's Department of Condensed Matter Physics.

Major funding is being provided by the Dr. Wilhelm Heinrich Heraeus and Else Heraeus Foundation, Germany, as well as by the Albert Einstein Minerva Center for Theoretical Physics and the Maurice and Gabriela Goldschleger Conference Foundation, both at the Weizmann Institute of Science.

 

The Weizmann Institute of Science is a major center of scientific research and graduate study located in Rehovot, Israel.

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