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U. Diebold, S.-C. Li, M. Schmid:
"Oxide Surface Science";
Annu. Rev. Phys. Chem., 61 (2010), 129 - 148.

Most metals are oxidized under ambient conditions, and metal oxides show
interesting and technologically promising properties. This has motivated
much recent research on oxide surfaces. The combination of scanning
tunneling microscopy with first-principles density functional theory-based
computational techniques provides an atomic-scale view of the properties
of metal-oxide materials. Surface polarity is a key concept for predicting
the stability of oxide surfaces and is discussed using ZnO as an example.
This review also highlights the role of surface defects for surface reactivity,
and their interplay with defects in the bulk, for the case of TiO2. Ultrathin
metal-oxide films, grown either through reactive evaporation on metal single
crystals or through oxidation of metal alloys (such as Al2O3/NiAl), have
gained popularity as supports for planar model catalysts. The surface oxides
that form upon oxidation on Pt-group metals (e.g., Ru, Rh, Pd, and Pt) are
considered as model systems for CO oxidation.

surface chemistry, catalysis, surface crystallography, nanostructures