Abstract
Early work (mainly by Langmuir) has erected the conceptual framework
for chemical reactions occurring at well-defined solid surfaces and
forming the basis for heterogeneous catalysis but experimental verification
has been enabled only during the past three decades. My first contribution
to Surface Science appeared in 1967 and concerned the interactions
of various molecules with Cu single-crystal surfaces, mainly by using
LEED. This technique revealed not only structural information, but
also was applicable for studying kinetic phenomena as exemplified
somewhat later with the catalytic oxidation of carbon monoxide on
Pd(110). Some of the questions raised in this early work could be
answered only quite recently or were revealed to be even more complex
than anticipated. This holds in particular for catalytic reactions
under steady-state conditions for which a wealth of phenomena of
nonlinear dynamics, ranging from oscillatory or chaotic kinetics
to spatio-temporal pattern formation, may occur.