Research Group:

Structural Science of Surfaces, Interfaces, Thin-Films, and Nano-Materials

Research Area:

Beamline:

Overview of Research Group, Goals and Purposes:

Solid surfaces and interfaces, and low-dimensional materials grown on them are our research subjects. In particular, target materials are well-defined metal and semiconductor surfaces/interfaces, oxide and catalyst surfaces/interfaces, thin-films, nano-scale structures and device materials. We make use of SPring-8 to reveal structures of surface layers on these solids and thin films at the atomic scale by using X-ray diffraction and scattering, i.e. grazing-angle X-ray diffraction, crystal-truncation-rod scattering, reflectivity, microbeam diffraction, and X-ray standing wave.

We tackle with enhancement of functionalities of existing techniques, and development of new methodologies to contribute toward structural surface science, via discovering new surface phenomena and revealing structural properties of functional surfaces and interfaces by using them. For example, on surface systems gathering interest recently, e.g. Rashba-effect surfaces, topological insulator surfaces, low-dimensional systems, their geometric structures are not infrequently unknown, although their electronic states have been well investigated by spectroscopic approach. This situation prevents us from making precise DFT calculations which link to our deep understanding of true nature of the surfaces. To overcome the situation, we would like to make crystallographic direct-methods practicable in surface diffraction, which do not need any prior structural model.

We intend to make discussions on advanced researches, i.e. surface magnetism, surface phonon, and surface reaction dynamics, illuminated by X-ray diffraction and scattering. To pursue these research areas, we would like to consider the best optics and experimental instruments for surface diffraction and scattering, and furnish them at promised beamlines. Actually, we installed a wide-band monochmomator using asymmetric silicon crystals as the high-flux optics at BL13XU.

Forthcoming SPring-8Ⅱ, the next light source, would serve us high-definition beams with higher-brilliance, such as full-spatial coherent beam, nano-focused beam, and femto- to picoseconds beams by bunch-slicing and so on. We would like to establish how to use these beams effectively for the next surface diffraction and scattering.

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