Oxide layers on metal and alloy surfaces play a role in various areas including corrosion protection, electrocatalysis, energy conversion and storage. They often exist under conditions that are not equililibrium conditions, but rather stationary or even non stationary conditions.

Their electrochemical reactivity is a key factor, and it is largely governed by their nanostructure.

In this lecture, the following aspects will be addressed :

- mechanisms of growth of oxide nanolayers on metals and alloys under controlled electrochemical potential

- nanostructure of oxide nanolayers under stationary conditions

- oxide surface/electrolyte interface : electrochemical reactivity at the atomic scale.

The materials selected to illustrate the above aspects are Cu₂O/Cu, NiO/Ni, Cr₂O₃/Cr and stainless steels, V₂O₅/V.

The experimental techniques used for surface imaging and spectroscopy are : scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).

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