Their main objective is to study theoretically the surface structure and surface vibrational properties of clean and adsorbate covered semiconductor surfaces that have fundamental scientific importance as well as various microelectronics application. Their efforts will be directed towards systems which are hard to treat using plane-wave techniques that have traditionally been popular in investigations of semiconductor surfaces. A hierarchy of theoretical techniques will be used, ranging from accurate and computationally intensive state-of-the- art first-principles total energy calculations (which will be applied to tractable prototypical systems) to parametrized tight- binding and classical force constants descriptions (which will be applied to more complex systems).
