Atomic structure of surfaces and ultrathin films

Structural and electronic properties of surfaces and ultrathin metallic films are closely connected. Because of their low dimensionality it is of the utmost importance to acquire their structural details at atomic level and their electronic structure resolved in energy and momentum at very high resolution. In this paper, we briefly review several experimental examples that illustrate these requirements and at the same time address some important properties of surfaces and ultrathin films. The examples are restricted to those that used scanning tunneling microscopy to study the structural properties and ultraviolet photoemission spectroscopy to elucidate the electronic structure of the samples.