ABSTRACT
Surface properties have always been important in materials science. Simply because the topology of a semi-infinite medium, representing a solid with a surface, is different from that of a completely infinite medium, representing the bulk of a solid, there are characteristic features of most phenomena that are specifically related to the surface. In this chapter we show that there is a solution of the wave equation, quite distinct from the travelling waves of Chapter 2, associated with the existence of a surface. This is of significance not only for the real solid, which has surfaces, but for structures on the surface. Such structures include impurities, adsorbed molecules, and artificially produced micron, nanometer, and atomic scale entities, all of which are of technological interest. Detailed study of all such systems, experimental and computational, requires consideration of interaction with the substrate. One aspect of this interaction is the substrate dynamics: its characteristic wave properties. This chapter exemplifies the basis for theoretical understanding of surface elastic wave effects in solids.
