Diffraction of Neutral Atoms and Molecules from Crystalline Surfaces

Publisher Summary This chapter provides an overview of the atom diffraction experiments. In specific, the chapter discusses qualitative treatment of the experimental methodology and a simplified explanation of the physical phenomena involved in atom diffraction. It describes the theoretical methods useful for understanding and interpreting the experimental data. A concise account of the structural information obtained by elastic diffraction and the problem of determining the atom-surface potential from the experiment is also presented. Furthermore, the chapter illustrates the information obtained on surface lattice dynamics. It also explores how the atom-surface scattering method is rapidly advancing along different pathways with respect to both experimental and theoretical techniques. The chapter considers two main lines of development— namely, elastic diffraction and inelastic scattering. Elastic helium diffraction is a commonly used technique for determining the structures of the topmost surface layer, thus giving independent or complementary information compared to other standard techniques such as low-energy electron diffraction (LEED) or ion scattering.