In recent decades surface science has experienced a large growth in connection with the development of various experimental techniques which are able to characterize solid surfaces through the observation of the scattering of ions, electrons, photons or atoms. These methods of investigation, known under different labels such as LEED, AES, XPS, UPS, etc. have been extensively applied in describing the structure, morphology, and chemical and physical properties of crystal surfaces and interfaces of a large variety of materials of interest in solid-state physics, electronics, metallurgy, biophysics, and heterogeneous catalysis. Among these methods we wish to emphasize molecular beam scattering from solid surfaces. ~lolecular beam scattering has gone through a large development in the last ten years. In this decade a large number of laboratories have used this method to study various clean and adsorbate-covered surfaces. The technique is nonetheless quite old. It dates back to the beginning of the thirties, when Estermann and Stern performed the first atom diffraction experiment proving the wave nature of atoms. In the following years the entire subject of gas-surface interaction was considered a branch of rarefied gas dynamics and developed in connection with aerospace research. Attention was then given to the integral properties of gas-solid interactions (sticking and energy accomodation, mean momentum transfer) rather than to atom-surface scatter ing from well-characterized surfaces.

Inhalt
I. Scattering of Atoms from Solid Surfaces.- Theory of Atom-Surface Scattering.- He Diffraction from Semiconductor Surfaces. Lecture I: Si(100).- He Diffraction from Semiconductor Surfaces. Lecture II: CaAs(110): Calibration of the Atom-Diffraction Technique.- He Diffraction from Semiconductor Surfaces. Lecture III: Si (111) 7×7.- Helium Scattering from Clean and Adsorbate-Covered Metal Surfaces.- The Coherence Length in Molecular and Electron Beam Diffraction.- Charge Density Waves Surface Deformation Studied by Helium Atom Diffraction.- II. Characterization of Adsorbed Phases.- Phase Transitions in Surface Films.- Universal Laws of Physical Adsorption.- The Dynamical Parameters of Desorbing Molecules.- Atomic Beam Diffraction as a Method for Studying Two-Dimensional Solids.- Atom Scattering from Overlayers.- III. Spectroscopy of Surface Optical Excitations.- Surface Elementary Excitations.- Surface-Enhanced Raman Scattering.- Calculation of the Phonon Spectrum of the Ni(111) Surface Covered with Oxygen.- IV. Surface Phonon Spectroscopy by Atom Scattering.- Phonon Interactions in Atom Scattering from Surfaces.- Surface Phonons in Ionic Crystals.- Inelastic Scattering of Neon from the (001) LiF Surface.- Inelastic Scattering from Metal Surfaces.- Bound State Resonance in the Inelastic Scattering of He-Graphite.- Index of Contributors.