Seminar Instituta za fiziku

“Surface Science” has reached a deep understanding of the specific physical properties and chemical processes at solid surfaces. In principle, surface structures can be determined with “subatomic” spatial resolution, and chemical processes can be monitored with femto-second time resolution. Major scientific surprises in this field, like the invention of the scanning tunneling microscope or the catalytic properties of gold, have become rare. Thus, surface research could go on as usual or can take on really new challenges. In this lecture I will support my personal view with a number of examples that the most obvious challenge lies in the transition from surface- to interface-science, i.e. the transition from well-defined single crystal surfaces under ultrahigh vacuum conditions to realistic interfaces under environmental conditions, i.e. from simplicity to complexity.