Nanoscale processes on insulating surfaces

Ionic crystals are among the simplest structures in nature. They can be easily cleaved in air and in vacuum, and the resulting surfaces are atomically flat on areas hundreds of nanometers wide. With the development of scanning probe microscopy, these surfaces have become an ideal "playground" to investigate several phenomena occurring on the nanometer scale. This book focuses on the fundamental studies of atomically resolved imaging, nanopatterning, metal deposition, molecular self-assembling and nanotribological processes occurring on ionic crystal surfaces. Here, a significant variety of structures are created by nanolithography, annealing and irradiation by electrons, ions or photons, and are used to confine metal particles and organic molecules or to improve our basic understanding of friction and wear on the atomic scale. Metal oxides with wide band gap are also discussed. Altogether, the results obtained so far will have an undoubted impact on the future development of nanoelectronics and nanomechanics

1. Crystal structures of insulating surfaces. 1.1. Halide surfaces. 1.2. Oxide surfaces -- 2. Preparation techniques of insulating surfaces. 2.1. Ultra high vacuum. 2.2. Preparation of bulk insulating surfaces. 2.3. Deposition of insulating films, metals and organic molecules -- 3. Scanning probe microscopy in ultra high vacuum. 3.1. Atomic force microscopy. 3.2. Scanning tunneling microscopy. 3.3. Atomistic modeling of SPM -- 4. Scanning probe microscopy on bulk insulating surfaces. 4.1. Halide surfaces. 4.2. Oxide surfaces. 4.3. Modeling AFM on bulk insulating surfaces -- 5. Scanning probe microscopy on thin insulating films. 5.1. Halide films on metals. 5.2. Halide films on semiconductors. 5.3. Heteroepitaxial growth of alkali halide films. 5.4. Oxide films. 5.5. Modeling AFM on thin insulating films -- 6. Interaction of ions, electrons and photons with halide surfaces. 6.1. Ion bombardment of alkali halides. 6.2. Electron and photon stimulated desorption -- 7. Surface patterning with electrons and photons. 7.1. Surface topography modification by electronic excitations. 7.2. Nanoscale pits on alkali halide surfaces -- 8. Surface patterning with ions. 8.1. Ripple formation by io…