Instructor: Shane Street
Office: 325 Lloyd Office phone: 8-5957 email: sstreet@bama.ua.edu
Office hours: MWF 10 am, or by appointment
Course description: This course is designed to introduce the student to the instrumentation and techniques used to study surfaces and interfaces. The techniques include: electron spectroscopy (AES, XPS), vibrational spectroscopy (RAIRS, HREELS, SERS), desorption techniques (TPD, SIMS), optical techniques (ellipsometry, SPR), and scanning probe microscopy (AFM, STM). Emphasis will be placed on metal and semiconductor surfaces since they are most widely encountered in catalysis, microelectronics, and magnetic materials.
Here's a pdf of the syllabus.
Dr. Earl Ada, research scientist at the Central Analytical Facilities here at UA, is putting together a significant online instructional resource. This will be particularly useful if you go on to learn to operate the Kratos SAM/XPS located in Bevill.
There is a fair amount of other good surface-related instructional material available on the Internet, although no claim is made here for their correctness. Examples include:
An Introduction to Surface Chemistry This is probably the best surface chemistry site on the web!
Simon Garrett's topical course He's at Michigan State, and this site is terrific.
An introductory tutorial on UHV Surface Science, with examples from my research, can be downloaded here as a pdf file.
FINAL Friday 13 Dec 02, 8 - 10:30 AM
Introduction: Why surfaces?
The structure of metallic (crystalline) surfaces, single crystals, relaxation and reconstruction
Adsorption and desorption, isotherms, kinetics, bonding
Why UHV? Ultrahigh vacuum requirements, techniques
Electron spectroscopies: AES, XPS, LEED, RHEED
Surface vibrational spectroscopies: HREELS, RAIRS
Desorption techniques: TPD, SIMS
Scanning probe microscopy: AFM, STM
Optical techniques: spectroscopic ellipsometry and SPR
AES Auger electron spectroscopy
AFM atomic force microscopy
HREELS high-resolution electron energy-loss spectroscopy
LEED low energy electron diffraction
RHEED Reflection high energy electron diffraction
RAIRS reflection-absorption infrared spectroscopy
SERS surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy
SIMS secondary ion mass spectrometry
SPM scanning probe microscopy
SPR surface plasmon resonance spectroscopy
STM scanning tunneling microscopy
TPD temperature programmed desorption
XPS x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy