氧化物应用广泛，然而人们对其表面物理化学性质的认识还多有不足，因此近年来关于氧化物表面的研究方兴未艾。氧化物单晶化薄膜的制备是研究氧化物表面性质的重要途径，氧化物薄膜自身往往也体现出一些新颖特性，应用潜力巨大。通过在制备过程中控制衬底表面及薄膜的结构、组成、缺陷、掺杂、膜厚等性质，可以有效的调控氧化物薄膜表面的物理化学性质。本项目将选择ZnO与CuxO等在多相催化中有重要催化应用的氧化物体系，尝试对其不同晶面的薄膜进行制备，并利用上述各种方法对薄膜表面分子吸附及金属生长等性质进行调控。研究将主要利用低温扫描隧道显微镜并结合其他原位表征手段，争取从原子分子水平理解和认识氧化物表面、界面的结构性质与表面化学过程的关联。项目中还将对非还原性及可还原性氧化物薄膜的制备与调控方法进行比较研究，总结调控氧化物薄膜表界面性质的有效控制因素，探索基于氧化物薄膜的新材料体系，为发展新型催化剂系统提供线索。

Metal oxides have wide applications in many fields. However, the fundamental knowledge of their surface properties are still far from satisfying. In recent decades, oxide thin films have emerged as a fast developing field for investigating the surface properties of the corresponding oxide bulk materials. Meantime, ultrathin oxide films themselves also display tremendous novel properties which may open many applicable opportunities. More importantly, it has been successfully addressed in a few systems that the properties of the ultrathin oxides can be tailored at both the surface and the interface, effectively by manipulating either the interfacial structure, composition, defects, dopants or the film thickness etc. In this project we will investigate the ultrathin films of a few typical oxides such as ZnO (irreducible) and CuxO (reducible), which has been widely applied in a number of important catalytic reactions. We will try to prepare their films with differently exposed surfaces and manipulate their surface properties via various strategies such as substrate, oxygen pressure, annealing temperature and doping etc. and subsequently investigate these surfaces with a series of in situ characterization techniques including low-temperature scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy. With all this done, we aim at understanding the structure-property relationships of these oxides at a true atomic level. The achieved knowledge from this research may finally show us the principles in tuning the surface properties of various different oxide materials including both irreducible and reducible oxides, which can finally lead us to the discovery of new functional materials based on oxides.