This book deals with various physical and chemical phenomena associated
with the interaction of a solid surface in a gaseous environment. The
authors have gone through a vast body of experimental material on the
structure and prop- erties of dielectric and semiconductor surfaces from
the point of view of ad- sorption and catalysis. They have attempted to
look into mechanisms of these processes and to outline the ways of
controlling them, as long as this seemed possible. A great deal of
attention is paid to considering th nature of ac- tive surface sites
responsible for chemisorption, catalytic conversion of adsorbed
molecules, and certain electronic surface phenomena. All the prob- lems
concern physicists working in the fields of microelectronics, optoelec-
tronics, thin-film electronics, as well as chemists doing research in
adsorp- tion, catalysis, and combustion. The wide scope of surface
phenomena included in this study is dealt with from a firmly established
standpoint of solid- state physics and the theory of chemical structure
and reactivity. The roots of this monograph go back to our earlier book
published with Nauka, Moscow, in 1978. The present edition has, however,
been revised sub- stantially and is extended to cover more grounds and,
in particular, recent results. We prepared the manuscript in our native
language and Mr. A. S. Dobroslavski was extremely helpful in the
translation. For fruitful discussions the authors are grateful to G. F.
Golovanova, Yu. A. Zarifyants, S. N. Kozlov, Z. L. Krylova, O. V.
Nikitina, L. Ya.