Surface Microscopy with Low Energy Electrons

Chapter 1. Introduction.- Chapter 2. Basic Interactions.- Chapter 3. Instrumentation.- Chapter 4. Theory of image formation.- Chapter 5. Applications in surface science.- Chapter 6. Applications in other fields.- Chapter 7. Magnetic imaging.- Chapter 8. Other surface imaging methods with electrons.

Professor Ernst Bauer is a distinguished German-American physicist and surface scientist who has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of epitaxial growth and to the development of microscopy techniques. He is one of the founders of surface physics and the physics of thin films.

In 1958 he derived the classification of the thin film growth mechanisms that provides the theoretical framework of epitaxy which is used worldwide to this day. In 1962 he invented LEEM (Low Energy Electron Microscopy), which came to fruition in 1985. In the late eighties/early nineties he extended the LEEM technique in two important directions by developing Spin-Polarized Low Energy Electron Microscopy (SPLEEM) and Spectroscopic Photo Emission and Low Energy Electron Microscopy (SPELEEM). The combination of these methods now allows a comprehensive (structural, chemical, magnetic and electronic) characterization of surfaces and thin films on the 10 nm scale.

Ernst Bauer's interest in the development of synchrotron radiation microscopy techniques and his involvement with the Synchrotron source Elettra in Trieste, Italy resulted in the development of the Nanospectroscopy beamline, which is today one of the leading synchrotron radiation microscopy facilities worldwide.

His work directly or indirectly impacts many areas of modern materials science: surfaces, thin films, electronic materials and instrumentation. The invention and development of surface microscopy with slow electrons has revolutionized the study of surface science and thin film science.

"The book is certain to become the bible of LEEM, PEEM, and related instruments. ... this is essentially a book for experimentalists, packed with data, excellent figures (ray diagrams, plots of important experimental results), and photographs of instruments. The book is unusually clearly and concisely written, and well referenced ... and truly represents the summation of a lifetime's work devoted to this field by its originator." (John C. H. Spence, Microscopy and Microanalysis, Vol. 21 (3), 2015)