Molecules at Solid Surfaces: A Personal Reminiscence

I was fortunate to start my career in physical chemistry at a time when the development of the ultrahigh vacuum technique and of novel physical methods enabled the study of processes on well-defined surfaces at an atomic scale. These investigations included the mechanisms of heterogeneously catalyzed reactions, such as CO oxidation and ammonia synthesis, and phenomena of spatio-temporal self-organization, as described by the concepts of nonlinear dynamics.