Description

Many properties of solids are strongly influenced or even determined by the behavior of the outermost atomic layers of the material. Yet, surfaces form a relatively young field of research in both physics and chemistry. In this course, we will go through a wide collection of surface phenomena and surface properties, such as the geometrical structure, the electronic structure, surface phonons, surface diffusion, adsorption and desorption, phase transitions, and crystal growth. Throughout the course, we pay ample attention to surface specific experimental techniques, such as ultrahigh vacuum, scanning tunneling microscopy, diffraction of electrons, atoms, and X-rays. Every week, one of the participants will present a paper from the recent scientific literature. The final lecture will be given in the form of an excursion to a surface science laboratory..

Credit points

6 ECTS

Lecturer

Prof.dr. J.W.M. Frenken, Room 163/Oort,
   email: frenken@physics.leidenuniv.nl, tel: (527) 5603 (5480 secr.)

Lectures

Dates/times: usually Mondays (11:15 - 13:00) From January 31, 2011 (see schedule below)
Location: HL204

Grade

The final grade will represent a combination of the homework handed in at each lecture and the presentations held during the course.

Course material

Text book: to be announced; the recent research literature will be handed out during the course.

Homework

Every week read the announced reading material (usually one of the chapters of the text book) and the research paper for that week. At the beginning of each lecture, hand in your solutions to the problem set / exercises that were given at the end of the previous lecture.
 

Prerequisite

Elementary Solid State Physics; elementary thermodynamics and statistical mechanics.