Rare Earth Oxides (REOs) are certainly an exciting group of elements, though often forgotten at the bottom of the periodic table. I got to work with the oxide of praseodymium during my doctoral studies and later on studied also films of the oxides of cerium, samarium, and terbium. I will try to add pieces to the lengthy story now and then when I find the time. Now the start is made...let's see how it will continue.
My relationship with rare earths started slightly before my Diploma (master) project in 2005. My task was to assemble and test an older UHV chamber for Spot-Profile -Analysis Low Enegry Electron Diffraction (SPA-LEED), of course not alone but with guidance of a PostDoc and Professor who had recently joined the University and who taught me lot (Thank you Carsten and Joachim!). To test the instrument we evaporated praseodymium oxide onto a piece of silicon wafer and studied the resulting structures with SPA-LEED and Auger electron spectroscopy. This choice of material was not completely random and the study developed into my Diploma thesis that I finished in 2006.
More on that and why that material was chosen soon...
Again, stay tuned. (Feb. 2026...20 years later)
My relationship with rare earths started slightly before my Diploma (master) project in 2005. My task was to assemble and test an older UHV chamber for Spot-Profile -Analysis Low Enegry Electron Diffraction (SPA-LEED), of course not alone but with guidance of a PostDoc and Professor who had recently joined the University and who taught me lot (Thank you Carsten and Joachim!). To test the instrument we evaporated praseodymium oxide onto a piece of silicon wafer and studied the resulting structures with SPA-LEED and Auger electron spectroscopy. This choice of material was not completely random and the study developed into my Diploma thesis that I finished in 2006.
More on that and why that material was chosen soon...
Again, stay tuned. (Feb. 2026...20 years later)