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U. Diebold:
"Oxide Surface: Surface science goes inorganic - A plethora of chemical tools is necessary for probing the surface reconstruction of a complex metal oxide";
Nature Materials, 9 (2010), 185 - 187.

When a material is cut in half
the atoms at the newly created
surface almost invariably end
up in high-energy con#gurations. !e
atoms rearrange, and o"en the symmetry
of the resulting structure is di$erent
from that of the bulk. !e new surface
structure is called a reconstruction. For
a complex material, such as a ternary
oxide, surface reconstructions can be
very intricate. For example, consider the
SrTiO3(110) surface (Fig. 1), which, a"er
reconstruction, has a structure, symmetry,
composition and even cation coordination
number that is distinctly di$erent (Fig. 2).
!e details of this reconstruction have
now been resolved by James Enterkin
and colleagues, who, writing in this recently its interfaces have gained attention
owing to the fact that the formation
of a two-dimensional electron gas
was observed3.