The Chemical Physics of Solid Surfaces and Heterogeneous Catalysis: Growth and Properties of Ultrathin Epitaxial Layers v.8

The physical base of chemisorption and heterogeneous catalysis is presented with contributions from an international panel of chemists, physicists and metallurgists. Expansion within the latter-1990s in the area of epitaxial growth has occured for an number of reasons. One has been the general trend in surface science to tackle the problems of increasing complexity as confidence is gained in the methodology. A second factor is the recognition of the potential importance of artificial multilayer materials not only in semiconductor devices but also in metal/metal systems because of their novel magnetic properties. Perhaps even more important than either of these application areas, however, is the recently-discovered power of scanning probe microsopies, and most notably scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), to provide the means to study epitaxial growth phenomena in an atomic scale under a wide range of conditions. These techniques have also contributed to revitalized interest in methods of fabricating and exploiting artificial structures (lateral as well as in layers) on a nanometre scale.
This volume includes a collection of articles which reflects the present scale of activitiy in this field. The emphasis is on metals and oxides rather than semiconductors.