Foreword

Abstract

The International Symposium on Atomic Bonding at Internal Interfaces: Modelling and Spectroscopy was held from 24 - 28 April 1995 at Schloss Ringberg, near Tegernsee, south of Munich, Germany. As the conference site of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Schloss Ringberg provided an ideal location for this symposium which involved forty leading scientists from all over the world. In a pleasant, but somewhat secluded environment, the participants could entirely concentrate on the exchange and discussion of scientific ideas. The oral presentations were attended by all participants and intensive discussions were held after presentations, during coffee breaks, meal times and in the evenings. The meeting brought together experimentalists and theorists who have made significant contributions to our understanding of internal interfaces. Among the subjects discussed were a variety of experimental methods, in particular spectroscopy, used to gain information on localized electronic structure. On the theoretical side, several researchers explained how the modelling of complicated interface structures has now become possible. Furthermore, some key presentations addressed issues relating to surface science, reflecting our more developed understanding of this field. Both experimental investigations and theoretical calculations provide new opportunities to aid our understanding of bonding at internal interfaces from a spatially resolved perspective at (near) atomic dimensions. With the help of these tools and analytical approaches it is now possible to couple quantitative information about electronic structure with real space images at previously unapproached resolutions. These methods can be improved by the detailed analysis of the discrepancies between experiment and calculation. The most actively pursued areas of research into atomic bonding at internal interfaces are well represented in this special issue of Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics. The experimental work of Bruley uses energy-loss near-edge structure (ELNES) to study the atomic coordination and bonding at interfaces; Brydson has worked on the quantitative modelling of these results. Another major area concerns the use of valence electron energy-loss spectroscopy (VEELS) and the experimental work of Müllejans uses this to uncover information on interband transitions and interface band structure. The theorists have also been making advances, such as the work of Mo to calculate interband transitions from first principles. Z-contrast imaging, such as that done by Browning, is another important area covered where individual atom column imaging and spectroscopy exposes a new level of understanding of the atomic and electronic structure of interfaces. The conference focused on progress made in these areas, and we look forward to witnessing even greater progress from these new techniques in forthcoming years. By bringing together experts from such a variety of different fields many new contacts were made and we are sure these will be exploited in future research. The participants who presented new, original research were encouraged to submit manuscripts of their work to this journal. All of the papers were subjected to the usual refereeing procedures and in all, the conference yielded thirteen articles which appear at the beginning of this issue. The International Symposium on Atomic Bonding at Internal Interfaces: Modelling and Spectroscopy was jointly funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft. Manfred Rühle, Harald Müllejans, Joachim Mayer, RogerH French and Rishi Raj Conference Organizers