Surface science

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Surface science is the study of physical and chemical phenomena that occur at the interface of two phases, including solid-liquid interfaces, solid-gas interfaces, solid-vacuum interfaces, and liquid-gas interfaces. It includes the fields of surface chemistry and surface physics. ^[1].

1 History
2 Surface chemistry
3 Surface physics
4 Analysis Techniques
- 4.1 Techniques for studying solid-vacuum interfaces
- 4.2 Techniques descended from scanning-tunneling microscopy
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] History

Irving Langmuir was one of the founders of this field, and the scientific journal, Langmuir, on surface science bears his name. The Langmuir adsorption equation is used to model monolayer adsorption where all surface adsorption sites have the same affinity for the adsorbing species.

[edit] Surface chemistry

Surface chemistry can be roughly defined as the study of chemical reactions at interfaces. It is closely related to surface functionalization, which aims at modifying the chemical composition of a surface by incorporation of selected elements or functional groups that produce various desired effects or improvements in the properties of the surface or interface. Surface chemistry also overlaps with electrochemistry. Surface science is of particular importance to the field of heterogeneous catalysis.

The adhesion of gas or liquid molecules to the surface is known as adsorption. This can be due to either chemisorption or by physisorption. These too are included in surface chemistry.

The behaviour of a solution based interface is affected by the surface charge, dipoles, energies and their distribution within the electrical double layer.

[edit] Surface physics

Surface physics can be roughly defined as the study of physical changes that occur at interfaces. It overlaps with surface chemistry. Some of the things investigated by surface physics include surface reconstruction, surface phonons and plasmons, epitaxy and Surface enhanced Raman scattering, the emission and tunneling of electrons, spintronics, and the self-assembly of nanostructures on surfaces.

[edit] Analysis Techniques

The study and analysis of surfaces involves both physical and chemical analysis techniques.

[edit] Techniques for studying solid-vacuum interfaces

Several modern methods probe the topmost 1-10nm of the of surfaces exposed to vacuum. These include X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, Auger electron spectroscopy, Low energy electron diffraction, Electron energy loss spectroscopy, Ion scattering spectroscopy, Secondary ion mass spectrometry, and other surface analysis methods included in the list of materials analysis methods.

[edit] Techniques descended from scanning-tunneling microscopy

Modern physical analysis methods include scanning-tunneling microscopy (STM) and a family of methods descended from it. Two of these are atomic force microscopy (AFM) and SPM. These microscopies have considerably increased the ability and desire of surface scientsts to measure the physical structure of many surfaces. This increase is related to a more general interest in nanotechnology.