Nanoscale Probes of the Solid--Liquid Interface deals with the use of the scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) and related instrumentation to examine the phenomena occurring at the interface between solid and liquid. Scanning probe microscopy (the collective term for such instruments as the STM, the atomic force microscope and related instrumentation) allows detailed, real space atomic or lattice scale insight into surface structures, information which is ideally correlated with surface reactivity. The use of SPM methods is not restricted to ultrahigh vacuum: the STM and AFM have been used on samples immersed in solution or in ambient air, thus permitting a study of environmental effects on surfaces. At the solid--liquid interface the reactivity derives precisely from the presence of the solution and, in many cases, the application of an external potential. Topics covered in the present volume include: the advantages of studying the solid--liquid interface and the obtaining of additional information from probe measurements; interrelationships between probe tip, the interface and the tunnelling process; STM measurements on semiconductor surfaces; the scanning electrochemical microscope, AFM and the solid--liquid interface; surface X-ray scattering; cluster formation on graphite electrodes; Cu deposition on Au surfaces; macroscopic events following Cu deposition; deposition of small metallic clusters on carbon; overpotential deposition of metals; underpotential deposition; STM on nanoscale ceramic superlattices; reconstruction events on Au(ijk) surfaces; Au surface reconstructions; friction force measurements on graphite steps under potential control; and the biocompatibility of materials.

This book addresses the recent developments in the investigation and manipulation of liquids at the nanoscale. This new field has shown important breakthroughs on the basic understanding of physical mechanisms involving liquid interfaces, which led to applications in nanopatterning. It has also consequences in force microscopy imaging in liquid env

Using combinations of in situ and ex situ experimental methods, fundamental and relevant phenomena such as adsorption and desorption of ions and molecules, restructuring of surfaces, thin film and nanocluster growth, and electrochemical reactions on the micrometer scale are addressed. The overview includes a wide range of experimental techniques and examples of solid-liquid interfaces and aims at stimulating an expansion of this important type of interface science.

This volume contains the proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Atomic and Molecular Wires". It was sponsored by the Ministry of Scientific Affairs Division special program on Nanoscale Science with the support of the CNRS and the Max Planck Institute. Scientists working or interested in the properties of wires at a subnanoscale were brought together in Les Houches (France) from 6 to 10 May 1996. Subnanoscale wires can be fabricated either by surface physicists (atomic wires) or by synthetic chemists (molecular wires). Both communities present their foremost advances using, for example, STM to assemble atomic lines atom for atom, to fabricate a mask for such a line or using the wide range of chemical synthesis techniques to obtain long, rigid and conjugated oligomers. Interconnecting such tiny wires to sources (voltage, current) continues to demand a great technological effort. But nanolithography associated with microfabrication or STM are now clearly identified paths for measuring the electrical resistance of an atomic or a molecular wire. The first measurements have been reported on Xe , benzene, C ' di(phenylene-ethynylene) showing 2 60 the need for a deeper understanding of transport phenomena through subnanowires. Such transport phenomena like tunnel (off-resonance) transport and Coulomb blockade have been discussed by theorists with an emphasis on the exponential decrease of the tunnel current with the wire length versus the ballistic regime of transport.

In the last few years it was seen the emergence of various new quantum phenomena specifically related with electronic or optical confinement on a sub-wavelength-size. Fast developments simultaneously occurred in the field of Atomic Physics, notably through various regimes of Cavity Quantum Electrodynamics, and in Solid State Physics, with advances in Quantum Well technology and Nanooptoelectronics. Simultaneously, breakthroughs in Near-Field Optics provided new tools which should be widely applicable to these domains. However, the key concepts used to describe these new and partly related effects are often very different and specific of the Community involved in a given development. It has been the ambition of the Meeting held at "Centre de Physique des Houches" to give an opportunity to specialists of different Communities to deepen their understanding of advances more or less intimately related to their own field, while presenting the basic concepts of these different fields through pedagogical Introductions. The audience comprised advanced students, postdocs and senior scientists, with a balanced participation of Atomic Physicists and Solid State Physicists, and had a truly international character. The considerable efforts of the lecturers, in order to present exciting new results in a language accessible to the whole audience, were the essential ingredients to achieve successfully what was the main goal of this School.