Silica is one of the key materials in many modern technological applications. Further miniaturization of nanoelectronic devices necessitates rational design of ultrathin silica films on electrically conductive substrates. This is the first-ever book on the preparation and atomic-level description of ultrathin silica films grown on metal substrates. Experimental and theoretical studies performed in recent years provide compelling evidence of the growth of well-ordered silica films that exhibit the structural motif of sheet silicates. A growing body of research suggests that a singlelayer silicate, which received the name silicatene by analogy with the famous graphene, should be included in the family of truly two-dimensional materials. In addition, the silicate films modified with metals such as Al and Fe offer a unique possibility to study the surface structures (and hence the surface chemistry) of natural silicates, e.g., clays and zeolites. Finally, ultrathin silica films represent well-defined model systems for elucidating the mechanism of crystal-glass transitions.

Shamil Shaikhutdinov received his PhD in physics in 1986 from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology for the study of microwave dielectric properties of inorganic materials. Then he joined the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis at Novosibirsk to carry out “surface science” studies of catalytic systems, in particular with scanning tunneling microscopy. Since 2004, he is leading the “Structure and Reactivity” group at the Fritz-Haber Institute at Berlin. His research interests focus on the fundamental understanding of atomic structures and surface chemistry of functional materials based on ultrathin films.