Received his PhD in Physical Chemistry from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the supervision of the late Professor Yehuda Haas.
His Post-doctoral training was together with Professor Gabor A. Somorjai in UC Berkeley (1981-1984) where he studied the basics of Surface Science. In 1984 he joined the Faculty of his Alma Mater, at the Institute of Chemistry of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Department of Physical Chemistry. In 1997 he became full professor of Chemistry. Between 2001-2004 he was the chairman of The Institute of Chemistry and subsequently (2005-2008) a deputy Dean for Research and Development at the Faculty of Science of the Hebrew University. In 2004 he was awarded among the "Top 50 Researchers" as nominated by Scientific American.
In his research he developed linear and non-linear optical methods to follow the kinetics and dynamics of chemical processes at the gas-surface interface under ultra high vacuum conditions as models for heterogeneous catalysis. Patterning technique at the sub-micron dimensions has been developed in his group based on laser ablation of weakly bound buffer materials. Recently, the role of surface plasmon excitation of nanometer size metallic clusters in enhancement of photo-catalysis has been investigated. Photochemistry of intact and caged molecules deposited on metal surfaces is studied as model systems of photo-catalysis as well as and recently focusing at mimicking inter stellar medium (ISM) photo and electrons-induced -reactivity to form new complex molecules as a possible "origin of life". The role of extremely high electric fields that can be generated by charging nanometer size layers of molecular (water) ices that behave as nano-capacitors is another topic of interest in his group.
A new molecule-surface phenomenon has just been reported (PRL, 2023), coined "inverse-volcano", where a guest molecule is injected towards a substrate upon host film molecules' crystallization. This is 25 years after the first observation of the "molecular volcano" where guest atoms and molecules are injected towards the vacuum.