Surface science

Surface science studies the physical and chemical properties of surfaces and interfaces, including their atomic structure, composition, reactions, and interactions with surrounding materials.

Surface energy: The excess free energy associated with creating or maintaining a material surface. It helps explain why surfaces restructure, adsorb molecules, and minimize exposed area.
Langmuir adsorption model: A model of adsorption onto a uniform surface with a finite number of equivalent, independent sites. It provides a simple quantitative account of molecules occupying surface sites.
Catalysis: The acceleration of a chemical reaction by a substance that is regenerated rather than consumed overall. Surface science supplies molecular explanations for how solid catalysts bind and transform reactants.
Irving Langmuir: An American chemist whose work on adsorption and surface chemistry earned the 1932 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. His adsorption studies helped establish quantitative ways to describe surface phenomena.
Bulk material: The interior portion of a material, whose properties are not dominated by its boundary with another phase. Surface atoms have fewer neighbors and can behave differently from atoms in the bulk.
Adsorption: The accumulation of atoms, molecules, or ions on the surface of a solid or liquid. Adsorption is a central way surrounding materials interact with surfaces.
Heterogeneous catalysis: Catalysis in which reactants and catalyst occupy different phases, with reactions occurring at their interface. Many catalytic cycles proceed through adsorption and reaction on solid surfaces.
Corrosion: The deterioration of a material through chemical or electrochemical reaction with its environment. Corrosion begins with reactions at exposed surfaces and interfaces.
Katherine Blodgett: An American physicist and chemist who developed methods for transferring molecular films onto solid surfaces. Her work helped turn molecular-scale surface films into controllable materials.
Colloid and interface science: The study of dispersed particles, macromolecules, and the interfaces that govern their behavior in fluids. It focuses on fluid interfaces and dispersed systems that complement solid-surface research.

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