A Short History of the Surphon Workshop Series

Abstract

It all began in 1979 when Bruce Doak decided to leave MIT after a year of graduate school to come to Göttingen to do something new. Within a year he succeeded in putting together a novel helium atom surface scattering apparatus, with which the first surface phonon dispersion curves were measured on the LiF surface out to the zone boundary [1]. To help us understand these results we invited Giorgio Benedek to Göttingen in June 1980. Giorgio then was a regular guest in the lattice dynamics theory group of Heinz Bilz, a director at the Max Planck Institut für Festköroperforschung in Stuttgart. Heinz Bilz at that time was developing models for phonons in metals in which the electron degrees of freedom were modeled by assigning multipole deformabilities to the ion cores [2]. This explains his excitement, when in 1983 he heard through Giorgio Benedek that another PhD student, Ulrich Harten [3], had succeeded in another apparatus (HUGO I) in our Institut to measure the surface phonon dispersion curves on Ag(111) [4]. Both Benedek and Bilz were especially fascinated by the discovery of a second dispersion curve at frequencies above the ubiquitous Rayligh mode. This prompted Bilz to organize on short notice an informal gathering in his Institut on `Oberflächenstatistik and dynamik'. My opening lecture on the new experiments was followed by six half hour theoretical lectures including talks by Fritz de Wette and by Giorgio Benedek, the pioneers in realistic calculations of surface dispersion curves on alkali halide surfaces. This was the birthday of the Surphon Series. The official conference names, organizers, venues, dates and numbers of participants of all the Surphon meetings held since are listed below: Statics and Dynamics of Surfaces, H Bilz (Max-Planck-Insitut für Festkörperforschung, Stuttgart, 27 September 1983) 7 speakers Statics and Dynamics of Surfaces, J P Toennies (Max-Planck-Insitut für Strömungsforschung, Göttingen, 15 June 1984) 11 speakers, 31 participants Statics and Dynamics of Surfaces, H Bilz and W Kress (Max-Planck-Insitut für Festkörperforschung, Stuttgart, 27--28 June 1985) 12 speakers Workshop on Surface Phonons , J P Toennies and W Kress (Ringberg Schloss, Rottach-Egern, 22--25 June 1987) 24 speakers, 38 participants Workshop on Surface Phonons, J P Toennies and W Kress (Ringberg Schloss, Rottach-Egern, 24--28 June 1990) 25 speakers, 38 participants Workshop on Surface Phonons, J P Toennies and W Kress (Ringberg Schloss, Rottach-Egern, 24--28 May 1992) 26 speakers, 38 participants Workshop on Dynamical Phenomena at Crystal Surfaces, D L Mills ( Countryside Inn, Costa Mesa, CA, USA, 27 June--1 July 1994) 33 speakers, 45 participants Workshop on Surface Dynamics Adsorbate Vibrations and Diffusion, J P Toennies and W Kress (Ringberg Schloss, Rottach-Egern, 18--21 June 1997) 30 speakers, 40 participants Workshop on Surface Dynamics, V Celli, A Kara, T Raman and J Skofronik (University of Virginia, Charlottesville, USA, 2--6 June 1999) 24 speakers, 35 participants Workshop on Surface Dynamics Phonons, Adsorbate Vibrations and Diffusion, D Farias and S Miret-Artes (Eroforum Hotel, l Escorial, Spain, 13--17 June 2001) 20 speakers, 36 participants Workshop on Surface Dynamics, Phonons, Adsorbate Vibrations and Diffusion, M Bertino (Meramec Park, Sullivan, MO, USA, 2--5 October 2003) 25 speakers, 33 participants Speaking for the late Heinz Bilz and others attending the first meeting a little over 20 years ago it is indeed gratifying to witness the strong continued interest in surface dynamics and the close personal contacts among the congenial group of second generation surphon enthusiasts. We wish them lots of satisfying scientific success and many more exciting surphon meetings.J Peter ToenniesReferences[1] Brusdeylins G, Doak R B and Toennies J P 1980 Rev. Phys. Lett. 44 1417 Brusdeylins G, Doak R B and Toennies J P 1981 Rev. Phys. Lett. 46 437 [2] See for example: Bilz H, Güntherodt G, Kleppman W and Kress W 1979 Phys. Rev. Lett. 43 1998 [3] Ulrich Harten was another enterprising student who forsook a safely initiated PhD project at another German university to join us in this new venture[4] Doak R B, Harten U and Toennies J P Phys. Rev. Lett. 51 578