Next topic Persons working on this topic This topic is organised around three main axes. The originality of the results obtained in the laboratory greatly benefited from an excellent articulation between experiments and modelling. Surfaces and interfaces are tackled experimentally as well as theoretically. An emphasis is put on oxide surfaces, metal-oxide interfaces, oxide thin films, and also on surfaces of transition metals. The nanostructures studied can be made of carbon, bore or nitrogen.
Aggregates are intermediate between atoms and bulk samples.
A computer simulation of a fractal aggregate of silica particles in a rubber matrix is shown here. Yellow and red balls represent lithium and oxygen atoms, respectively. The mechanism of lithium attachment provides information on the growth of a metal on its native oxide. Surfaces and interfaces, in particular of metals and insulating oxides, are studied theoretically as well as experimentally. In addition to the Bragg spots characterising the atomic structure of the surface, diffraction rings yield new information about the organisation of defects on a nanometre scale.