Effects of restructuring in adsorption and reaction dynamics at metal surfaces

Abstract

After more than 30 years of research in surface science, the atomic details of the structural diversity of clean and adsorbate covered metal surfaces are now revealed by diffraction and by microscopic techniques. The phenomenon of adsorbate-induced restructuring is found to be pervasive, and proves to lie behind many characteristic processes in the field of heterogeneous catalysis, such as bistability and kinetic oscillations.