Aharon Blank

Post Doc: Rothschild Postdoctoral Research Associate, Cornell University, NY, USA - 2002-2005.

Ph.D.: Physical Chemistry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2002.

M.Sc: Electrical Engineering and applied physics, Tel Aviv University, 1997.

B.Sc: Physics, Mathematics and Chemistry, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1992.

Main Nano Field: single spin spectroscopic detection and nanometer scale imaging of paramagnetic defects in semiconductors.

Research Interests:

*Magnetic Resonance

My line of work is in the field of magnetic resonance, mainly Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). 

Magnetic resonance is one of the most versatile fields of science, with applications ranging from chemical structure determination to medical imaging, and quantum information processing.  Consequently, this technique is fairly multidisciplinary, and involves researchers from all aspects of natural and life sciences, and engineering.  From a scientific point of view, magnetic resonance was, up to date, the main focus of at least seven Nobel prizes in physics, chemistry, and medicine.  From an industrial point of view, magnetic resonance is a multibillion industry, aiming at a wide range of medical and chemical applications.

Despite the fact that magnetic resonance was discovered over 60 years ago, and magnetic resonance imaging is more than 30 years old, there is still “plenty of room down there” for new methodologies, approaches, and applications.  For example, magnetic resonance is known to be very insensitive technique that requires relatively large amounts of material for spectroscopic evaluation.  We are trying to resolve this drawback through the use of new types of detection methods.  Namely, we develop sensitive miniature ESR resonators that operate at wide range of temperatures and frequencies.  From another aspect, magnetic resonance imaging has currently limited spatial resolution in the order of several microns.  Currently we already achieved sub-micron scale resolution with ESR imaging, and we are looking into methods and means to improve the resolution to the deep sub-micron level at low temperatures and high magnetic fields.  Yet another area of enormous potential, which is currently still at its infancy, is in the field of quantum information processing (or quantum computers).  Here magnetic resonance was used successfully to demonstrate various quantum data processing algorithms, but only with a few quantum bits.

We are looking into methods to greatly enhance this capability and to enable the realization of a practical magnetic resonance quantum computer with ultra sensitive ESR.  In the field of NMR, we are developing techniques for “ex-situ”

*NMR, where the sample is located outside the magnet.  This is very useful for materials science and medical applications.

*NMR imaging and microscopy

*Single spin detection