Body Building Comes in Many Forms Building the implanter, forming research collaborations, showing initial results and constructing a clientele infrastructure that can recommend the Surface Analysis Unit—all of these allowed BINA to submit a proposal to the Israel Science Foundation (ISF) in request of funding to acquire a larger implanter. While waiting for the ISF decision, BINA’s management already got all the proof of feasibility and ability and decided to allocate resources and encourage the team’s unit to step up to their next challenge: building a new beam line to the accelerator, an ion microbeam with resolution of up to five microns. “Today, the diameter of the ion beam is a minimum 1.5 millimeters,” says Dr. Girshevitz. “With the new microbeam, we will be able to map an area of that size 300 times. It means, of course, extricating more details, but more importantly, it will be 3D information from both the depth and lateral surface of our sample.” Dr. Girshevitz and her team will build the ion microbeam with the help of their friends and colleagues from the Ruđer Bošković Institute in Zagreb, the Republic of Croatia, who will assist with blueprints, recommendations and deliberations. Building a handmade ion microbeam presents a significant advantage compared to a commercial one, which is somewhat basic and limited, as Dr. Girshevitz points out. “Any special adjustment or addition costs a lot of money and is not always possible. We are determined to make a singular ion microbeam edition that meets our vision and needs.” This five-microns-ion-beam, one-of-its-kind in Israel, will be a great service to the chips industry that frequently tackles malfunctions and short circuits due to pollution. “When the chip is smaller than 1.5 millimeters, the best we can do is to extract an indication that there is pollution, but we cannot point out its location. Using the microbeam, we will be able to focus and map every five microns of the chip, providing images of both X, Y and Z directions throughout the sample—essentially a 3D visualization of the chip—and tracing a leakage or pollution to its source. With these precise data, it will be easier for our clients to overcome such problems that often hold back R&D processes.” Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat It gets even more interesting when it comes to biological samples that are minute in nature. “We have many research collaborations with ophthalmologists, for example, for whom such a tool is essential to expanding their understanding of the optic nerve. This nerve is much smaller than 1.5 millimeters, and currently we can only provide them with averaged quantitative information about the elements found in a sample of an optic nerve. Using a five-microns-beam will allow us to focus on deferent areas of nerve, detect elements and point to specific locations where they accumulate.” Dr. Girshevitz gives an example of recent research in collaboration with Prof. Nitza Cohen-Goldenberg, MD, Director of the ophthalmology department at Bnai Zion Medical Center and Over a decade ago, when BINA’s founders set out to establish the Surface Analysis Unit and acquired a state-of-the-art particle accelerator, they made a brave and ambitious decision to address the unmet needs of the local research community and industry. Dr. Olga Girshevitz, head of the Surface Analysis Unit, was the one to install, operate and maintain the Pelletron tandem accelerator, the core piece of the unit. She still does so today. BIU’s alumni Dr. Girshevitz holds a multidisciplinary knowledge that enables BINA to realize this complicated technical potential, making the Surface Analysis Unit a key player in dozens of research projects and forming and maintaining collaborations with scientists from the academia, defense and civil industry in Israel and worldwide, advancing research and providing R&D problemsolving. Nowadays, with the support of BINA’s present management, the unit keeps pushing harder, enhancing its performance and building handmade cutting-edge facilities to the benefit of Israel’s current and future endeavors. 24
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