Surface Science: An Introduction

Surface Science: An Introduction , K. Oura , V. G. Lifshits , A. A. Saranin , A. V. Zotov , and M. Katayama Springer-Verlag, New York, 2003. $89.95 (440 pp.). ISBN 3-540-00545-5

Surface Science: An Introduction is an excellent book that reviews many of the centrally important features of this interdisciplinary field. The book was produced by a collaboration of scientists at Osaka University in Japan and Vladivostok State University in Russia. Despite the authors’ varied backgrounds, the text is smoothly written and interesting.

Readers will be immediately impressed by the quality and number of figures (372 in all) used to tell the story. Surface Science is designed for advanced undergraduate or graduate students in the engineering and physical sciences. It also serves as an introduction for researchers entering the field.

Many earlier surface-science textbooks have concentrated on the experimental techniques used for measurements in the field. Surface Science also describes numerous experimental methods, but its main focus is on the concepts central to the field. After the introduction, the book presents an excellent chapter on two-dimensional crystallography; a chapter on experimental background follows, and the book then progresses through four chapters on surface analysis—from diffraction to electron spectroscopy, ion probes, and microscopy. The book proceeds to atomic and electronic structure of surfaces. The final four chapters discuss surfaces containing adsorbed atoms or molecules; topics include adsorption, desorption, surface diffusion, thin film behavior, and nanostructures on surfaces.

The authors of Surface Science are selective in their choice of topics and depth of coverage. The text is more concerned with physical issues at surfaces than with chemical issues; hence, any treatment of chemical bonding and chemical reactions at surfaces is missing. The authors cover equally semiconductors and the surfaces of metals. The book includes references to rather modern measurements and concepts. For example, chapter 7 nicely covers the use of the scanning tunnel microscope as a structural and electronic probe and as a tool for manipulation of atoms on surfaces. The text provides citations (between 2 and 35 in each chapter) to major review articles and some research articles in the field, but its main purpose is to teach, rather than to comprehensively review the field.

The book, however, has its shortcomings in terms of comprehensiveness and accuracy. For example, in the very short treatment of field-ion microscopy, the authors omit the important atom probe field-ion technique. In chapter 11, the effect of depolarization between adsorbates is mentioned in the section on work function and adsorption, but the authors do not give a formula or reference to how one actually includes depolarization in calculating the work-function change during adsorption. And in the short section in chapter 3 on the use of commercial getters for depositing alkali metals, the authors have an incorrect understanding of how those getters are constructed.

Despite some of its drawbacks, I like the book because of its clarity and compactness. Each chapter presents a few exercises that will serve well in the classroom. In conjunction with other recent books on the subject, Surface Science is a good resource for the student who is introduced to the field for the first time.