科研之友
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摘要
A brief history is presented of investigations demonstrating the role of surface steps in determining the adsorption and reaction properties of surfaces. Early beginnings prior to the development of modern ultra-high vacuum surface science methods, using spherical crystal surfaces, demonstrated the strong dependence on surface orientation of some surface chemical processes. Most modern surface science studies have exploited flat single crystal surfaces, vicinal to low Miller index orientations, of known average step and kink densities. However, there was a resurgence of studies of curved surfaces in the late 1970s and again, with increasing sophistication, in the 21st century. A further important set of phenomena that have their roots in the middle of the 20th century are the morphological changes that can occur due to the orientation dependence of surface energy, leading to faceting and roughening transitions. Adsorbate-induced faceting is particularly prevalent and highly relevant to adsorption and reaction studies. As such, in investigations of surface reactivity of stepped surfaces, complementary structural information plays a key role in understanding the underlying processes.
- 出版日期2016-12-14
