
Physics of colloids and emulsions

We employ optical microscopy, light scattering, and optical tweezing to study phases and phase transitions in systems of colloids, micron-sized particles, undergoing Brownian motion in a liquid.
Colloids exhibit liquid, crystalline, glass, gel and liquid-crystalline phases, mimicking atoms and molecules.
Employing confocal microscopy, we follow tens of thousands of individual particles in real time, in three dimensions. This unprecedentedly-detailed experimental information, which is not available with any other experimental technique, allows a much deeper understanding of collective phenomena to be achieved.
We employ similar experimental techniques to study the interfacial physics of liquid emulsion droplets.
We also employ analytical centrifugation in an attempt to elucidate the physics of hydrodynamic instabilities occurring during nanoparticle sedimentation.
News...
August 2022: "Behind the paper" blog at Nature Portfolio Physics Community
Writing of water: topology-controlled patterns on liquid droplets
January 2021: Our work in the news: nplus1.ru (in Russian) phys.org (English) Physics (APS)
September 2020: Congratulations!!! Shir got one of the five ‘Israeli Postdocs in Israel’ fellowships of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities.
July 2020: Orlando on Bar-Ilan University facebook
April 2019: The "Nanoscale Views" blog by Prof. Douglas Natelson (Rice Univ.) discusses our recent work on faceted liquid droplets.
October 2017: BINA Newsletter about the work done by Omer, Moty and others to achieve super-resolution in our lab.
April 2017: Eli receives the Bar-Ilan University Rector’s Prize for Scientific Innovation.
January 2017: Avner receives the prestigious Katzir fellowship for “brilliant young scientists, who will grow within the research and development sector and who can lead the sector to meet the needs of the new millennium”.
November 2016:
March 2016:
February 2016: Radio interview (in Hebrew)
January 2016:
January 2014: Shir awarded the Young Scientist Award (YSA-2014) by the LUM company (Germany), for her research of colloidal sediments, done in our group.