We are an experimental group interested in the physics of complex, disordered, and nonlinear soft matter systems in far from equilibrium conditions.  

We are part of the Department of Condensed Matter Physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at Tel Aviv University.  

We are active members of interdisciplinary centers within the university: the Center for Physics and Chemistry of Living Systems, the Center for Light-Matter Interactions, the Center for Nano-science and Nano-technology, and the Sagol School of Neuroscience.

You can find us on the 3rd floor of the Shenkar Physics building

You can find our updated list of publications here 

We study the dynamics and mechanics of disordered systems, materials, and meta-materials, in order to characterize and understand the mechanisms underlying their complex behaviors.  To this end, we use a range of experimental techniques enabling simultaneous measurements across a wide range of time and length scales, including ultra-fast imaging, advanced microscopy, multi-scale mechanical characterization, optical and x-ray tomography, and more.

A crumpled thin sheet is a fascinating soft material, exhibiting complex mechanical responses and an array of out-of-equilibrium behaviors. These include intermittent mechanical response, avalanche dynamics, slow relaxations, and a variety of mechanical memory effects.  We use mechanical characterization, acoustic measurements, 3D scanning and tomography, advanced data analysis methods and extensive simulations to understand the origin of the rich mechanical behavior of these systems. Here is a video of a talk about some of these efforts, and recent publications on memory formation, physical aging, avalanches and more. 

Complex, multistable disordered matter can adapt to repeated external perturbations by decreasing dissipation during the response. We are looking into ways of harnessing these and other properties of disordered matter to enable physical learning.

Mechanical metamaterials are designed complex systems made of structured media. Here, the macroscopic properties are determined by both the material properties and by the way in which this material is arranged in space. We study elastic, visco-elastic, active, and multistable metamaterials composed of distinct degrees of freedom, where the local mechanical rules are simple, but the macroscopic behaviors are complex due to disorder, nonlinearities, geometric frustration, symmetry breaking, or active control.  Using smart designs, mechanical characterization, imaging, and modeling, we attempt to understand the relationship between complex macroscopic behaviors, material properties, and geometrical structure. 

We use smart illumination and advanced imaging methods to measure the dynamics and interactions between nanoparticles such as colloids,  viruses, and biological macromolecules. Our focus is on label-free techniques that allow extracting information on the location of single nanoparticles, changes in their size, mass or composition, changes in their environment,  and the nature of the interaction between them, at nano-scale resolution and high rates. More on one of these methods here (and here).

Quantum walks are the quantum-mechanical analogs of classical random walk processes. Using theoretical, numerical and machine learning tools, we explore the emergence of complex non-classical correlations between quantum walkers, ways of controlling them, and the use of such schemes in quantum information processing and computing. You can read more in our recent paper on using quantum walks for quantum logic operations, and another paper on deep learning quantum walks.