Introduction to the Properties of Crystal Surfaces. [Materials Science & Technology Monographs, Volume 12]

Blakely has a long standing reputation in the field of materials science and condensed matter physics with emphasis on surface and interface science. He has contributed to studies of a wide variety of types of material including metals, ceramics, and inorganic and organic semiconductors. The focus of the research in his group has been the relationship between the properties of solid surfaces and their structure and composition. He pioneered the use of patterning techniques in the study of surface mass transport at surfaces due to atomic diffusion. Other principal areas of research have included the kinetics of solid-liquid phase transitions, the thermodynamics and kinetics of self assembled monolayer structures including Graphene due to adsorption or segregation, the energetics and dynamics of atomic steps on surfaces, the role of surface charged layers in photographic and other ionic materials, adsorbed phases and the oxidation process on alloy surfaces, the structure and composition of glass surfaces. Experimental techniques of his group have included electron diffraction and spectroscopies, glancing incidence synchrotron X-ray methods, nanofabrication methods and scanning probe microscopy.