Abstract
If we look around, everything we see is surfaces. What we cannot see, however, are the atomistic and electronic processes that occur at surfaces (and interfaces), playing a crucial role in the properties, function, and performance of advanced materials and in nanoscale technologies.
Basic research in surface and interface science is highly interdisciplinary, covering the fields of physics, chemistry, bio-physics, geo-, atmospheric and environmental sciences, material science, chemical engineering, and more. The various phenomena are interesting by themselves, and they are most important in nearly all modern technologies, as for example electronic, magnetic, and optical devices, sensors, catalysts, lubricants, hard and thermal-barrier coatings, protection against corrosion and crack formation under harsh environments. In fact, detailed understanding of the elementary processes at surfaces is necessary to support and to advance the high technology that very much founds the prosperity and lifestyle of our society. The strength of surface science as a discipline has been recognized by the award of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Prof. Gerhard Ertl for his studies of chemical processes on solid surfaces.
Current state-of-the-art experimental studies of elementary processes at surfaces, of surface properties and functions employ a variety of sophisticated tools. Some are capable of revealing the location and motion of individual atoms. Others measure excitations (electronic, magnetic, vibronic), for example employing special light sources such as synchrotrons, high magnetic fields, or free electron lasers. The surprising variety of intriguing physical phenomena at surfaces, interfaces, and nanostructures also poses a persistent challenge for the development of theoretical descriptions, methods, and even basic physical concepts.
This Focus Issue in New Journal of Physics provides a synoptic view on pertinent developments in the field.
Focus on Advances in Surface and Interface Science Contents
Thermal contact delocalization in atomic scale friction: a multitude of friction regimes Sergey Yu Krylov and Joost W M Frenken
Ultrafast optical excitations of metallic nanostructures: from light confinement to a novel electron source Claus Ropers, Thomas Elsaesser, Giulio Cerullo, Margherita Zavelani-Rossi and Christoph Lienau
Complex magnetism of the Fe monolayer on Ir(111) Kirsten von Bergmann, Stefan Heinze, Matthias Bode, Gustav Bihlmayer, Stefan Blügel and Roland Wiesendanger
Adsorption-induced chirality in highly symmetric hydrocarbon molecules: lattice matching to substrates of lower symmetry Neville V Richardson
Dynamics of electron transfer at polar molecule–metal interfaces: the role of thermally activated tunnelling J Stähler, M Meyer, X Y Zhu, U Bovensiepen and M Wolf
Simulating adsorption of complex molecules using the linearity between interaction energies and tunnelling currents: the case of hexabenzocoronene on a Ag/Pt dislocation network K Palotás and W A Hofer
Adsorbate induced self-ordering of germanium nanoislands on Si(113) Thomas Schmidt, Torben Clausen, Jan Ingo Flege, Subhashis Gangopadhyay, Andrea Locatelli, Tevfik Onur Mentes, Fang Zhun Guo, Stefan Heun and Jens Falta
ARPES and STS investigation of Shockley states in thin metallic films and periodic nanostructures D Malterre, B Kierren, Y Fagot-Revurat, S Pons, A Tejeda, C Didiot, H Cercellier and A Bendounan
Ultrafast energy flow in model biological membranes Marc Smits, Avishek Ghosh, Jens Bredenbeck, Susumu Yamamoto, Michiel Müller and Mischa Bonn
Epitaxy of GaN on silicon—impact of symmetry and surface reconstruction A Dadgar, F Schulze, M Wienecke, A Gadanecz, J Bläsing, P Veit, T Hempel, A Diez, J Christen and A Krost
Effect of quantum confinement of surface electrons on adatom–adatom interactions V S Stepanyuk, N N Negulyaev, L Niebergall and P Bruno
Temporal step fluctuations on a conductor surface: electromigration force, surface resistivity and low-frequency noise E D Williams, O Bondarchuk, C G Tao, W Yan, W G Cullen, P J Rous and T Bole
Surface resonances on transition metals as low-dimensional model systems M Minca, S Penner, E Dona, A Menzel, E Bertel, V Brouet and J Redinger
Symmetry breaking in few layer graphene films Aaron Bostwick, Taisuke Ohta, Jessica L McChesney, Konstantin V Emtsev, Thomas Seyller, Karsten Horn and Eli Rotenberg
Matthias Scheffler, Fritz-Haber-Institut der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany Wolf-Dieter Schneider, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland