Mordehai Heiblum

Mordehai Heiblum
Born	(1947-05-25) May 25, 1947 Holon, Israel
Other names	Moty Heiblum
Occupation(s)	Electrical engineer, condensed matter physicist
Years active	1970s–present
Known for	Contributions to mesoscopic physics, fractional quantum Hall effect

Mordehai Heiblum (also known as Moty Heiblum, born May 25, 1947, in Holon) is an Israeli expert in electrical engineering and condensed matter physics, recognized for his contributions to mesoscopic physics. His experimental work provided evidence for the fractional charge in the fractional quantum Hall effect and quantified half-integer values of thermal conductance quantum at the 5/2 filling factor. These groundbreaking findings have garnered him numerous honors, including the 2025 Wolf Prize in Physics.

In 2025, he was inducted as a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Biography

Moty Heiblum’s early life was spent in Holon. Between 1967 and 1971, he served within the Israeli Defense Force Communications Corps and also instructed at the IDF Air Force Technical School. He earned his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the Technion in 1973, followed by a master's degree from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1974. His doctoral studies culminated in 1978 with a dissertation titled Characteristics of metal-oxide-metal devices, supervised by John Roy Whinnery. Subsequently, he spent twelve years working at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center.

In 1990, Heiblum returned to Israel to found the Joseph H. and Belle R. Braun Center for Submicron Research at the Weizmann Institute, with backing from Professor Yoseph Imry. The center, initially funded with about $16 million, specializes in submicron-scale semiconductor structures operating within the mesoscopic domain. Since its inception, Heiblum has directed this center and was appointed full professor that same year. He also established the Department of Condensed Matter Physics at Weizmann Institute, leading it as director from 1993 to 1996 and again from 2007 through 2012. In 2000, he was honored with the Alex and Ida Susan Professorial Chair of Submicron Studies.

From 1991 to 1992, Heiblum chaired a governmental committee focused on advancing Israel’s microelectronics sector. Since 2001, he has served as chairman of the board of directors at Braude College of Engineering. His academic appointments include visiting professorships at Vienna University of Technology (1993–1996) and Stanford University alongside Hewlett Packard Labs (1996–1997). He has held editorial roles for Semiconductor Science and Technology and currently contributes as editor to Solid State Communications. Together with Professor Elisha Cohen from Technion, he co-organized the International Conference on Semiconductors held in Jerusalem in 1998, which attracted approximately 1,100 attendees.

Among his distinguished doctoral students is Amir Yacoby, who completed his Ph.D. under Heiblum’s supervision in 1994.

Research

The focus of Heiblum’s investigations lies in exploring electron quantum phenomena within ultra-clean mesoscopic materials, especially under conditions defined by the quantum Hall effect (QHE). His key contributions include creating innovative electronic interferometers that reveal one- and two-electron interference patterns, employing which-path detectors to manipulate electron coherence, detecting fractional electronic charges via precise shot noise analysis, and measuring quantized thermal conductance in both fractional abelian and non-abelian QHE states.

Awards

In 1986, Heiblum was honored with the IBM Outstanding Innovation Award, followed by receiving the EMET Prize in 2013. He holds the status of life fellow within the IEEE, was inducted as a fellow of the American Physical Society in 1990, and became a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2008. That same year, he earned the Rothschild Prize in physics.

The year 2021 saw Heiblum being the exclusive awardee of the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize for his groundbreaking experimental work on mesoscopic and quantum Hall phenomena, notably electron interference, charge fractionalization, and quantized heat conduction.

In 2025, Heiblum shared the Wolf Prize in Physics with Jainendra K. Jain and James P. Eisenstein in recognition of their seminal contributions to the comprehension of the fractional quantum Hall effect.

Family

Moty Heiblum is married to Rachel, who possesses a PhD in biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and has been affiliated with its Faculty of Agriculture located in Rehovot. Together, they have four children. His younger sibling, Zohar Heiblum, is active as a director, manager, turnaround expert, and investor within the high-technology industry.

Selected publications

• Analysis of curved optical waveguides by conformal transformation, 1975, IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, 11(2), 75–83
• Direct Observation of Ballistic Transport in GaAs, 1985, Physical Review Letters, 55(20), 2200–2203
• Direct measurement of the density of states of a two-dimensional electron gas, 1985, Physical Review B, 32(4), 2696–2699
• Temporal Correlation of Electrons: Suppression of Shot Noise in a Ballistic Quantum Point Contact, 1995, Physical Review Letters, 75(18), 3340–3343
• Coherence and Phase Sensitive Measurements in a Quantum Dot, 1995, Physical Review Letters, 74(20), 4047–4050
• Phase measurement in a quantum dot via a double-slit interference experiment, 1997, Nature, 385(6615), 417–420
• Direct observation of a fractional charge, 1998, Physica B: Condensed Matter, 249-251(1–4), 395–400
• Dephasing in electron interference by a 'which-path' detector, 1998, Nature, 391(6670), 871–874
• Observation of quasiparticles with one-fifth of an electron's charge, 1999, Nature, 399(6733), 238–241
• Phase Evolution in a Kondo-Correlated System, 2000, Science, 290(5492), 779–783
• An electronic Mach–Zehnder interferometer, 2003, Nature, 422(6930), 415–418
• Crossover from 'mesoscopic' to 'universal' phase for electron transmission in quantum dots, 2005, Nature, 436(7050), 529–533
• Unexpected Behavior in a Two-Path Electron Interferometer, 2006, Physical Review Letters, 96(1), 016804
• Interference between two indistinguishable electrons from independent sources, 2007, Nature, 448(7151), 333–337
• Observation of a quarter of an electron charge at the ν = 5/2 quantum Hall state, 2008, Nature, 452(7189), 829–834
• Observation of neutral modes in the fractional quantum Hall regime, 2010, Nature, 466(7306), 585–590
• Zero-bias peaks and splitting in an Al–InAs nanowire topological superconductor as a signature of Majorana fermions, 2012, Nature Physics, 8(12), 887–895
• Observed quantization of anyonic heat flow, 2017, Nature, 545(7652), 75–79

External links

• (presentation by Moty Heiblum at Tel Aviv University)
• (lecture by Moty Heiblum at the Tel Aviv-Tsinghua Xin Center 2nd International Winter School)
• (Moty Heiblum's 2009 lecture)