Course catalogue
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Master SERP+ Programme - cohort 2020-2025
Surface Science and Nanostructuring at Surfaces (6 ECTS)
All courses during this semester
All courses during this semester
- Transferable skills: Polish course, Summer School in Entrepreneurship (6 ECTS)
- The molecules of life: from structure to chemical function (3 ECTS)
- Selected in silico and in vitro methods in thermodynamics and soft matter (6 ECTS)
- Organic chemistry (3 ECTS)
- Introduction to solid state (6 ECTS)
- Dynamics of photochemical reactions in chemistry, biology and medicine (6 ECTS)
- Transferable skills: Portuguese course, Summer School in Entrepreneurship (6 ECTS)
- Solid State Physics (6 ECTS)
- Molecular Energetics (3 ECTS)
- Laboratory of Materials and Surface Analysis (6 ECTS)
- Interfacial Electrochemistry (3 ECTS)
- Interfaces, Colloids and Self-Assembly (6 ECTS)
- Transferable skills: Summer School in Entrepreneurship (3 ECTS)
- Organic Photochemistry (3 ECTS)
- Italian Courses (3 ECTS)
- Introduction to Solid State (6 ECTS)
- Inorganic Functional Materials (3 ECTS)
- Electrochemical systems for energy conversion and storage (6 ECTS)
- Chemistry and Technology of Catalysis and Laboratory (6 ECTS)
All courses during this semester
- Nanosciences (6 ECTS)
- Nanoparticles and Advanced radiation therapies (6 ECTS)
- Fundamentals in data science and machine learning (3 ECTS)
- Femtochemistry (3 ECTS)
- Chemistry for renewable energy: from advanced research to industrial applications (6 ECTS)
- Transferable skills: Scientific writing, Polish courses (6 ECTS)
- Lanthanide luminescence: Application in chemistry and biology (6 ECTS)
- Introduction to Data Sciences (3 ECTS)
- Environmental photochemistry (3 ECTS)
- Computational and quantum photochemistry (6 ECTS)
- Applied photochemistry and luminescence spectroscopy (6 ECTS)
- Scientific Writing and Career Objectives (3 ECTS)
- Portuguese course (3 ECTS)
- Nanotechnologies, Micro and Nano-fabrication (6 ECTS)
- Materials Properties and Applications (6 ECTS)
- Electrochemical Technology (6 ECTS)
- Data Science Basics (3 ECTS)
- Bionanotechnology (3 ECTS)
- Transferable skills: Scientific Writing Industrial Seminars (3 ECTS)
- Surface Science and Nanostructuring at Surfaces (6 ECTS)
- Polymers for electronics and energy harvesting (6 ECTS)
- Laboratory on device building (3 ECTS)
- Italian Courses (3 ECTS)
- Data Science and Applications to Chemistry (3 ECTS)
- Composite materials for biomedical applications (6 ECTS)
Content
The course will give an introduction to surface properties of relevance in nanoscience and nanotechnology. Emphasis will be given to the crystallographic structure, electronic states, thermodynamics and lattice and electron dynamics at the surface, and to gas surface interaction and catalytic reactions in the heterogeneous phase.
Frontal lectures (40 hours):
Surface crystallographic structure.
- The geometric surface plane and the two-dimensional surface lattice, its unit cell and symmetry properties, and surface relaxation and reconstruction.
- Direct and reciprocal lattices.
- Notation of surface structure: low Miller index surfaces, vicinal surfaces, superlattices.
- Examples of the reconstruction of metal and semiconductor surfaces.
- Modification of the surface structure by physisorption and chemisorption and crystal growth modes.
- Determination of the surface structure: diffraction methods vs microscopy.
- Low energy electron diffraction (LEED), and treatment of multiple scattering and dynamical LEED.
- Small angle scattering and high resolution in reciprocal space.
- Low energy electron microscopy and scanning probe microscopies (STM, AFM).
- Characterization of surface composition: Auger electron and X-Ray induced photoemission.
Surface Thermodynamics.
- Surface excess quantities.
- Surface energy, surface tension and work needed to create a surface.
- Surface heat capacity.
- Surface energy and surface composition for alloys segregation.
- Island growth and ripening phenomena.
Surface Lattice Dynamics.
- The Surface phonon spectrum, bulk bands, and surface modes. T
- he Rayleigh wave.
- Surface phonon anomalies.
- Vibrational and thermal desorption spectroscopies.
- Surface Debye temperature.
Surface Electronic properties.
- The jellium model: internal potential and work function.
- The surface dipole layer and the face dependence of the work function.
- Surface band structure, and density of states at the surface and surface states.
- The image states and implication for photochemistry.
- Electronic excitations and surface plasmons.
Graphene and other two dimensional crystals.
- Electronic properties and lattice dynamics in purely two dimensional systems.
Adsorption of gases and catalysis.
- Self assembled monolayers and artificial nanostructures.
- Physisorption vs Chemisorption.
- Gas surface interaction.
- Precursor states.
- Activated adsorption.
- Examples of catalytic reactions in the heterogeneous phase.
Laboratory training (12 hours).
- Low energy electron diffraction.
- X ray photoemission and Auger electron spectroscopies.
- Scanning probe microscopies: STM, AFM.
Aims
Relevance of surfaces and interfaces in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology. The course will introduce: a) the surface excess quantities and thermodynamical properties of surfaces; b) the surface crystallographic structure with relaxation and reconstruction phenomena; c) the surface electronic ground state properties and the surface states; d) the surface magnetic properties. Specific cases for semiconductor, oxide and insulator surfaces, graphene and other ultrathin films will be discussed with respect to dimensionality with extension towards one and zero dimensions, i.e atomic wires, surface steps and clusters. Excited states at surfaces will be treated: surface phonon spectra, surface electronic and magnetic excitations. Connections to plasmonics, Energy harvesting in solar cells and photoinduced chemistry will be stressed. Gas-Surface interaction, physisorption and chemisorption, dynamics of the interaction, adsorption, desorption, sticking and simple catalytic reactions will be discussed. Crystal growth, MBE, CVD, ablation techniques, nanosized films and clusters will be introduced as well as self-assembled monolayers, artificial nanostructures and surface functionalization. Experimental methods for surface characterization, like Scanning Probe Microscopies and Diffraction Methods, as well as Surface Sensitive Electronic and Vibrational Spectroscopies will be introduced.
Pre-requiste
Introduction to solid state properties, principles of Quantum Mechanics
Recommended Books
- Gabor A. Somorjai and Yimin Li: Introduction to Surface Chemistry and Catalysis, second edition, Wiley.
- Teacher’s slides and other material will be provided to the students by the teacher.
Teaching Staff
Prof. Mario Rocca
Hours
Frontal lectures: 40 hours
Laboratory: 12 hours
Study hours for the students : 88h
Grading System
20% laboratory reports
80% final oral exam