BICTAM Summer School on Surfaces and Interfaces in Solid Matters

1.       Theme of the Summer School

The course will expose the most central aspects of geometry, energetics, and electronic structure of surfaces and interfaces.

Emphasis will be on crystalline solids and on the impact of capillary effects on states of mechanical as well as chemical equilibrium in solid matters, in particular in interface-controlled and/or nanostructured materials.

2.       Topics

Introduction and motivation

Atomic-scale geometry

Structure-energy relations

Thermodynamics

Electronic structure

Interface-controlled materials; coarsening and stability; nano-materials

3.       Dates

The course will take place on July 8-17, 2008.

4.       Number of Participants

This course is for both undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Professor Dr Joerg Weissmuller will be invited to give the lessons, who studied Materials Science at the Universities of Saarbrücken, Germany，and Dundee, Scotland. He holds a PhD in Engineering, also from Saarbrücken. Weissmüller has worked as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD, USA and at the Institute of New Materials in Saarbrücken. Presently he is a staff scientist and group leader at the Institute of Nanotechnology, a department of the new Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He is also a Privatdozent in the Technical Physics Department of Saarbrücken University. He has been awarded the Feodor Lynen Fellowship and the Heisenberg Fellowship. Weissmüller’s research is focused on nanomaterials, with emphasis on thermodynamics and continuum mechanics of interfaces, phase transformations, magnetism, magnetic neutron scattering, and plastic deformation mechanisms. He is the author of about 90 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including Science, Physical Review Letters and Nano Letters, etc. He has given about 50 invited lectures, and holds several patents.

5.       Organizer

Family Name, First Name: Jianxiang, Wang

Title, Position: Professor

Affiliation and Address: Peking University

6.       Syllabus of the Course

1.       Introduction and motivation

2.       Atomic-scale geometry

Classification

Crystallography

Atomic structure and defects

3.       Structure-energy relations

Steps and dislocations

Cusps and faceting

Vicinal surfaces and small-angle grain boundaries

Accommodation of misfit

4.       Thermodynamics

Capillary parameters and state variables

Equilibrium conditions and constitutive equations

Gibbs-Thomson type equations

Solid surfaces; Surface stress versus surface tension

Electrodes

Gradient terms; diffuse interfaces and phase-field approach

Interfaces of crystals: equilibrium shapes; Wulff-construction

Equilibrium at edges and triple lines; Herring-Mullins equation and Cahn-Hoffman vector

5.       Electronic structure

Metals versus semiconductors

Surface dipole and work function

Surface relaxation and stretch

Impact on energetics: Miedema model

6.       Interface-controlled materials; coarsening and stability

Foams

Coarsening and grain growth; von Neumann-Mullins law

Stability in two and three dimensions Nanomaterials