Oxide Thin Films and Nanostructures

Nanostructured oxide materials - ultra-thin films, nanoparticles and other nanometer-scale objects - play prominent roles in many aspects of our every-day life, in nature and in technological applications, among which is the all-oxide electronics of tomorrow. Due to their reduced dimensions and dimensionality, they strongly interact with their environment: gaseous atmosphere, water or support. Their novel physical and chemical properties are the subject of this book, from both a fundamental and an applied perspective. Oxide Thin Films and Nanostructures reviews and illustrates the various methodologies for their growth, fabrication, experimental and theoretical characterization. The role of key parameters such as film thickness, nanoparticle size and support interactions in driving their fundamental properties is underlined. At the ultimate thickness limit, two-dimensional oxide materials are generated, whose functionalities and potential applications are described. The emerging field of cation mixing is mentioned, which opens new avenues for engineering many oxide properties, as witnessed by natural oxide nanomaterials such as clay minerals, which, beyond their role at the Earth's surface, are now widely used in a whole range of human activities. Oxide nanomaterials are involved in many interdisciplinary fields of advanced nanotechnologies. Catalysis, photocatalysis, solar energy materials, fuel cells, corrosion protection, and biotechnological applications are amongst the areas where they are making an impact. The book outlines prototypical examples. A cautious glimpse into future developments of scientific activity is finally ventured to round off the presentation.

1 - Introduction
2 - Growth of oxide thin films and nanoparticles: methods of fabrication
3 - Methods of study
4 - Oxide thin film properties
5 - Two-dimensional oxides
6 - Oxide nanoparticles
7 - Clay mineral layers and nanoparticles
8 - Surface chemistry, energy conversion and related applications
9 - Synopsis and outlook

Falko P. Netzer is Professor of Physics Emeritus at the Institute of Physics, University of Graz, Austria. He obtained his PhD in Physical Chemistry at the University of Innsbruck in 1971. After a postdoc stay in the Surface Physics Group of the University of York, England, he obtained his Habilitation in 1978, and became an Associate Professor at the University of Innsbruck. In 1980-82 he spent one and a half years as a Guest Scientist at the National Bureau of Standard, Gaithersburg, MD, and at the Physics Department at the University of Maryland. In 1991, he took the Chair of Experimental Physics at the University of Graz, where he set up a large surface science laboratory. He spent many sabbatical months at the University of California Berkeley, at the University of Washington, and at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He served on many international committees and advisory boards and is the recipient of one of the prestigious ERC Advanced Grants from the European Research Council. Claudine Noguera is CNRS Research Director Exceptional Class at the Paris Institute of Nanosciences that she founded in 2005. She got her PhD in 1975 and her habilitation in 1981 at Orsay University, in France. She initiated the field of Oxide Surfaces at the international level at the end of the 1980ies, wrote a monograph on this subject in 1996 and created the series of IWOX conferences, which is still running. She settled a mixed theory/experiment group in Paris in 2002. Her research then developed towards the physics of oxide ultra-thin films and the understanding of nucleation and growth processes in the natural medium.