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Home 1.Introduction 2. Structure 3. UHV 4. Adsorption 5. Surface States 6. Techniques 7. Scanning tunnelling microscopy Feedback Problems

© copyright 1999 Philip Moriarty, School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Nottingham

Recent website additions

Added 22/01/03: Questionnaire responses and module report form for 2002/2003 added. Click on 'Feedback' in the frame to the left. ~

Added 14/01/03: Worked solutions to LEED questions on previous exam papers are available here . (You will need to have Adobe Acrobat installed - this is a .pdf file).

Added 26/11/02: Assessment criteria for presentations added (scroll to bottom of this page) .

Added 25/11/02: Answers to online questions in sections 4 and 5 added. .

Added 28/10/02: Answers to online questions in sections 2 and 3 added. .

Added 26/09/02: Website updated for 2002/2003 Autumn semester .

array Welcome to the Atoms and Molecules at Surfaces homepage. Surface physics is a vibrant and pervasive area of modern research that plays a central role in the development of nanometre (10-9m) scale science and technology. This module covers the structural, electronic and vibrational properties of atoms and molecules at surfaces from both theoretical and experimental viewpoints. Key topics include adsorption and growth of atomically precise surface overlayers;ultra high vacuum technology (essential in the generation of atomically defined surfaces); electron spectroscopies and the use of scanning probe microscopes to visualise and manipulate individual atoms and molecules. (What does the image to the left show?)

Click on the buttons in the frame to the left or in the areas in the banner at the top of the page to navigate around the Atoms and Molecules at Surfaces web site. The following items may be found on this (home) page:

Contact Details

Philip Moriarty
School of Physics & Astronomy, Office: B125, Tel. (internal): 15156
E-mail: Philip.Moriarty@nottingham.ac.uk


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Aims and Objectives

This module aims to introduce students to the principal topics in modern surface physics, both emphasising the role surfaces play in the general context of solid state physics and demonstrating the importance of surfaces and interfaces in modern nanometre scale science.

On completion of this module students will :


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Teaching & Assessment

Teaching
The Atoms and Molecules at Surfaces module is a School of Physics & Astronomy 3rd year option course (offered from Oct. 1999 - click on "Feedback" for students' comments on the course in previous years). The pre- and co-requisites may be found here . I have adopted a somewhat different approach to that of the conventional lecture format in presenting the material in the module. The course relies heavily on the World Wide Web (WWW) as a teaching resource. The lecture notes (which may be accessed by clicking on Sections 1- 7 in the frame to the left) have been written so that in addition to explaining particular aspects of surface science, they provide hypertext links to a range of WWW sites. Thus, a large amount of reference material from, for example, research groups across the world who are working in relevant areas of surface science, is made available.

Given that the lecture notes are available on the web (and will also be handed out in printed form in the lectures), your time during the lecture will not be spent copying down notes from the blackboard. Note that an Atoms and Molecules at Surfaces textbook is currently being prepared - with Dr. Michael Hunt - and will be published by World Scientific in 2003. It is my intention to provide chapters from this book to students during the course (these chapters will be closely based on - though not identical to - the online notes).

You will be expected to spend ~ 1 hr before each lecture reading over designated sections of the notes. Each section of the lecture notes includes a number of questions (generally "qualitative" questions but some short quantitative questions are also included (both designed to enhance your understanding of a topic)) which you should think about and we will then discuss in the lecture. It is hoped therefore that a large number of the lectures will be closer to "discussion groups" or tutorials rather than lecturer-driven presentation of the course material.

Following a discussion of the questions in the lecture I will link the questions to their respective answers or a synopsis of our discussion. That is, before the lecture, when you click on a question the browser will produce nothing (except an error message saying a file can't be found!). After the lecture pertaining to that question, on clicking on the question the answer will appear. In addition to the questions in the lecture notes you will be expected to attempt other (generally more involved) problems.

Assessment
Assessment is via two methods:

Exam paper format
The examination is a standard 1.5 hr format paper. Copies of previous exam papers may be downloaded from the University's online past paper archive.
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Reading List

As discussed in Teaching & Assessment above, the lecture notes for the Atoms & Molecules at Surfaces module are available via this web site and are linked to a number of web-based resources. Dr. Roger Nix (Queen Mary & Westfield College, (University of London)) has prepared an excellent on-line course entitled Introduction to Surface Chemistry which is at a level appropriate for this module. Dr John Venables' Surfaces and Thin Films course based at Arizona State University is aimed at postgraduates and is thus a little too detailed in places for our purposes. However, the lecture notes Dr. Venables provides are very clearly written and I have provided links to his course in quite a number of places.

Links to other web-based courses and Surface Science resources are provided throughout the Atoms and Molecules at Surfaces HTML lecture notes. Please let me know if you find other surface science-based web pages of interest as I can then provide a link to those sites.

I should point out that a number of the diagrams I have used on the Atoms & Molecules at Surfaces web site have been provided by current and former postgraduate students of the Nottingham Nanoscience group to whom I am very grateful!

I recommend the following textbooks for this course.

Primary Reading

Secondary Reading


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Course Outline

Click on a thumbnail image for a description

    C60 islands
  1. Introduction


    Ag-terminated Si(111)
  2. Structure of Surfaces


UHV

  • Ultra High Vacuum (UHV) Technology

    •
    Adsorption

  • Adsorption on Surfaces



    • Surface State

  • Surface States


    • Techniques

  • Techniques for Surface Analysis


    • STM

  • Scanning Probe Microscopy



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    Timetable

    As noted in Teaching above the scheduled 50 minute Atoms & Molecules at Surfaces time slots will consist of a mixture of (both lecturer- and student-given) lectures and discussions based on directed reading. The topics covered are laid out in the following timetable.


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    Suggested Presentation Topics

    The list of suggested presentation titles is as follows: Note that you are also free to suggest a topic of your own.

    The presentation contributes 20% of your final module mark and should be prepared at a level appropriate for a student entering his/her 3rd year (i.e. someone who has not taken the Atoms and Molecules at Surfaces module). The headings under which the article will be assessed are given below.

    Note that a literature search will be necessary when preparing the presentation. There are a number of sources - textbooks, the WWW and scientific journals. If you have not already done so, speak to the George Green library personnel about using the Web of Science bibliographic service to search the scientific literature.

    Assessment

    Assessment criteria for the presentation are     here .

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    Last Updated:28/09/2001
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