The Tom and Mary Beck Center for Renewable Energy

Dr. Michal Leskes is a senior scientist at the department of Molecular Chemistry and Materials Science at the Weizmann Institute. She completed her PhD with Prof. Shimon Vega at the Weizmann Institute and a postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Clare Grey at the University of Cambridge, UK.

Her research group focuses on elucidating the functioning mechanism of energy storage and conversion materials and the development of new analytical tools based on high sensitivity magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Insight gained from the developed methodologies provide unique atomic-molecular level correlation between the structure and function of state-of-the-art battery materials and enables development of improved energy storage systems.

Dr. Leskes received a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (2012-2013), the Yigal Alon fellowship from the Israeli Council of Higher Education (2015-2018), the Abragam Prize from the International Society of Magnetic Resonance (2019), an ERC starting grant (2019), the Early Career award from the Israel Vacuum Society (2020), the Weizmann Institute Scientific Council Award in Chemistry (2022), and the Guy Sella Award in Energy Research (2023).

Theory of Excited-State Phenomena in Materials
The group works on developing and applying many-body computational approaches to study excited-state dynamics in materials of complex structure. Its aim is to understand the underlying interactions composing and evolving the excited states, and their relation to the relation to the material’s structure and design. 
 

Structural Dynamics of Materials
The group is developing a new approach to understanding and controlling material properties at finite temperatures. The experimental group of engineers, physicists, and chemists is dedicated to uncovering the connection between atomic and molecular dynamics and material properties. It combines state-of-the-art optical spectroscopy methods, heat capacity, and electronic transport measurements to demonstrate that thermal fluctuations often profoundly affect the dielectric constant, heat capacity and transport, charge transport, and optical properties of materials.

Prof. Milko van der Boom received his BSc from the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands, and MSc in Inorganic Chemistry at the University of Amsterdam. He earned his PhD degree with distinction from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, working with Prof. David Milstein. After three years of postdoctoral research with Prof. Tobin J. Marks at Northwestern University in the US, he became a Faculty member in the Weizmann Institute's Department of Organic Chemistry. 

He is currently the incumbent of the Bruce A. Pearlman Professorial Chair in Synthetic Organic Chemistry and the Head of the Department of Chemical Research Support at the Weizmann Institute. He has been awarded the Alon Fellowship from the Israel Council for Higher Education, the Gutwirth Award, and the Israel Chemical Society Prize for Young Scientists. He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. 

(Bio)Opto-electronic Materials & Interfaces
Optoelectronic materials, and semiconductors in particular, are the building blocks for most of today's high-tech gadgets and instruments. The group provides unique insights into materials properties, due to their extreme sensitivity to even the slightest changes of composition. It focuses our research on bio-molecular electronics and optoelectronic materials. 
 

Solution Deposition of Semiconductors for Photovoltaics
The group studies nanoporous solar cells using inorganic semiconductors as the light absorbing element. It also investigates solution deposition of semiconductor films (chemical bath and electrodeposition), both to understand the deposition mechanisms and to learn to control the properties of the films, as well as for their use in our solar cells, which the group fabricates mainly using these methods. 
 

Quantum Theory of Materials
The group's research is focused on understanding unique properties and behavior of materials and interfaces, using first principles quantum mechanical calculations based mostly on density functional theory and many-body perturbation theory.
 

Sustainable Nanomaterials
The group develops noncovalent nanomaterials that are robust, adaptive, and sustainable - they can be as tough as covalent ones (such as polymers(, and yet can be easily assembled and disassembled, enabling simple fabrication and recycling. The group is interested in material functions, such as filtration membranes, recyclable supramolecular plastic materials, and solar energy conversion.
 

Sustainable Nanomaterials
The group develops noncovalent nanomaterials that are robust, adaptive, and sustainable - they can be as tough as covalent ones (such as polymers(, and yet can be easily assembled and disassembled, enabling simple fabrication and recycling. The group is interested in material functions, such as filtration membranes, recyclable supramolecular plastic materials, and solar energy conversion.
 

Dielectrics, Electromechanics, Ion-Conductors
The group "teaches" materials to exhibit very unusual elastic and electrical properties. It has investigated rubber-like-ceramics, self-organization of nanocrystalline ferroelectric grains into macro-domains, and formation of non-crystalline polar phase. These projects employ a range of micro-fabrication, structural and electrical characterization techniques.
 

Laboratory for Protein Design
The group’s research combines computational methods development, including atomistic modeling and AI, and structural and biochemical wet-lab work. It probes our understanding of protein design principles by designing new proteins and testing their activities in the lab. The group is committed to making methods accessible to all scientists, and its algorithms have enabled the group and researchers from around the world to design antibodies, vaccines, therapeutic enzymes, and enzymes for green chemistry. The group is excited to see protein design enabling the next wave of discovery in basic and applied biomolecular research.
 

Prof. Milo and his group bring the tools of systems biology to bear on the challenges of sustainability, with a focus on understanding energy and carbon transformations in quantitative terms. They work to understand fundamental design principles of carbon fixation and photosynthesis, with the goal of improving the efficiency of food and fuel production. Prof. Milo applies Big Data analysis tools to clarify our understanding of the biosphere and human impact on the living world, including the ecological costs of food production. The Milo lab has studied the environmental footprint of various food systems, and is developing the theoretical and experimental basis for engineering bacteria that can fix CO2 and transform it into food or feed.

Catalysis, Green Chemistry, and Renewable Energy Lab
The group’s interest is in the shift of chemical and energy related processes from entrenched high temperature catalysis based on fossil fuels to low temperature sustainable catalysis using electricity and light as renewable energy sources. All this is directed to the prevention of emission of greenhouse gasses, such as carbon dioxide and methane, through abatement and non-carbon emitting reactions.

Sustainable Energy
The group focuses on sustainable energy, bond activation chemistry, and green homogenous catalysis. Metal-ligand cooperation by aromatization – dearomatization of the hetero-aromatic ligand core of pincer complexes has led to new reactions in the group’s lab that are significant for sustainable energy, such as water splitting, new high capacity hydrogen storage systems, superior biofuel, and low pressure stepwise CO2 conversion to methanol.
 

Surface Physics and Interface Chemistry
The group studies the physical and chemical phenomena on model catalyst surfaces. Its studies are relevant to the current grand challenges of energy and environment, and to potential roadmaps for the hydrogen economy, methanol economy, oil economy, and carbon dioxide utilization.