Metal deposits on well-ordered oxide films

Metal oxide interfaces, metal coatings or dispersed metals on oxide supports play an important part in many technological areas. Nevertheless, there is still a lack of fundamental knowledge about the essential properties of thin metal films and small metal particles on oxide supports, although a deeper understanding could help to improve the electronic, mechanical or catalytic performance of such systems. In the past, a number of different approaches have been proposed and explored aiming at the preparation of suitable model systems. In this review, we discuss the possibility to use thin, well-ordered oxide films as supports for the study of deposited metal particles. This approach offers the advantage to permit the unrestricted application of all experimental methods, which rely on a good electrical or thermal conductivity of the sample, like PES, LEED, STM or TDS. With the help of several examples taken from our own work on a thin alumina film, we show that it is feasible to characterise such systems on a microscopic level with respect to all relevant structural, electronic and adsorption properties. In this way, correlations between these features can be established helping to understand the particular chemistry and physics of small metal aggregates.