Università Roma Tre

- Surface of a solid and solid/solid interface: general notions, historical development and applications

- Thermodynamics, crystallography and structure: two-dimensional lattices and superstructures; reciprocal lattice and Brillouin azone - surface tension and crystals shape; structural defects; relaxation and reconstruction; solid/solid interfaces; nucleation and thin film growth, low energy electron diffraction to investigate surface structure

- Electronic properties: surface electronic states; three-dimensional bands; band mapping with the photoemission technique; image states and core level shift; electronic states in semiconductors; the work function; surface and adsorbed vibrations; surface phonon observation methods; surface plasmons and polaritons

- Adsorption and desorption: physisorption and chemisorption; dissociative adsorption; adsorption and work function; interactions between adsorbed species; bi-dimensional phase transitions; adsorption kinetics; desorption. SUrface diffusion: Flick laws, mechanisms and anisotropy of diffusion, atomic and cluster diffusion

- Experimental techniques: general concepts of ultra high vacuum; pumping systems; vacuum components; preparation of a clean surface; vacuum deposition techniques

- Surface magnetism: electronic structure and anisotropy in ferromagnetic materials; magnetization and magnetic surface anisotropy; spin-polarized photoemission; magnetic dichroism; photoemission electron microscope for detecting magnetic domains

- Microscopy: scanning and transmission electron microscope; probe scanning microscopy: scanning tunneling microscope and atomic force microscope

- Philip Hofmann, Surface Physics

- Hans Lüth, Solid Surfaces, Interfaces and Thin Films (Springer-Verlag, 2010)

- K. Oura, et al., Surface Science, An Introduction (Springer-Verlag, 2003)

- Andrew Zangwill, Physics at Surfaces (Cambridge University press, 1992)

- Gabor A. Somorjai, Introduction to surface chemistry and catalysis (Wiley, 2010)