Technion – Israel Institute of Technology Department of Materials Engineering

Established and Supported by Minerva Stiftung Gesellschaft für die Forschung m.b.H

Director of the Center: Professor Wayne D. Kaplan, Dean  

Members of the Georg Sachs Center:  

• M. Bamberger
• S. Berger
• R. Chaim
• Y. Ein-Eli
• M. Eizenberg
• G. Frey
• Y. Lifshitz
• B. Pokroy
• E. Rabkin
• A. Rothschild
• D. Shechtman
• D. Sherman
• M. S. Silverstein
• E. Zolotoyabko

The Advisory Committee

From Germany:

• Professor M. Rühle (Chairman), Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung, Stuttgart
• Professor H. Hahn, Technische Hochshule, Darmstadt
• Professor M. Göken, Nürnberg-Erlangen University

 From Israel:

• Professor M. Eizenberg, Vice President for Research, Technion
• Professor D. Fuks, Department of Materials Engineering, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
• Professor D. Gershoni, Physics Department and Solid State Institute, Technion

The Georg Sachs Research Center for Materials Processing and Structure Characterization was established in 1984. One of the important functions of the Center is to support purchasing of advanced equipment required to maintain high level of research in materials processing and characterization. The Center is widely open for all Faculty members, research fellows and graduate students in the Department of Materials Engineering, who benefit from the Center’s facilities. The Center’s equipment, which was purchased with financial support provided by Minerva, the Faculty of Materials Engineering and the Technion, is used in various research projects carried out by the Faculty members. Another important function of the Center is to support exchange of scientists, mainly young Israeli and German scientists, which we highly appreciate.The research activities of our faculty members and research staff within the Professor Georg Sachs Research Center for Materials Processing and Structure Characterization cover a wide spectrum of fields, from physical metallurgy (including diffusion, phase transformations, grain boundaries and interfaces, mechanical behavior, and magnesium technology) to electrochemistry and corrosion, materials aspects in microelectronics, optoelectronics and organic electronics. We are investigating different phenomena and processes in metals and alloys, structural and functional ceramics, electronic and optical materials, thin films, composites, quasi-crystals, biomaterials, polymers and plastics. A special emphasis is placed on the correlation between structure, microstructure and properties of materials. In this context, advanced characterization methods play a key role. Two central laboratories, which are partially supported by the Georg Sachs Research Center, are the Electron Microscopy Laboratory and the X-Ray Diffraction Laboratory. The Electron Microscopy Laboratory is one of the largest laboratories of this kind in Israel, equipped by optical microscopes, SEM, TEM and HRTEM facilities. The latter serves as the National Center for high-resolution electron microscopy in Israel. The laboratory provides major tools for micro-structural and micro-chemical characterization of materials. It is a unique laboratory owing to its expensive state-of-the-art equipment, the high standard of maintenance and services provided by its technical staff and the expertise of the faculty members involved in its operation. The X-Ray Diffraction Laboratory is equipped with powder diffractometer and extended software for phase analysis and microstructure characterization. These two laboratories serve to the Technion community and researchers from other institutes and Israeli industry. In addition, Minerva Foundation via the Georg Sachs Research Center partially supported the purchasing of the sputtering system for the Departmental processing laboratory, the thermo-analysis and dilatometry system, the FTIR system, a Triboscope nano-indentation system, and the thin-film measurement system.The Georg Sachs Research Center for Materials Processing and Structure Characterization was evaluated in 2003 by an International Review Committee headed by Professor R. Kirchheim ( University of G öttingen). Professors R. S. Averback (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL), M. E. Gliksman (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY) and D. N. Seidman (Northwestern University, Evanston, IL) served as members of the Review Committee. On the basis of a very positive review report it was decided to prolong the work of the Center for a final seven-year period until 2010.