This work represents the account of a NATO Advanced Research Workshop on "Thin Film Growth Techniques for Low Dimensional Structures," held at the University of Sussex, Brighton, England from 15-19 Sept. 1986. The objective of the workshop was to review the problems of the growth and characterisation of thin semiconductor and metal layers. Recent advances in deposition techniques have made it possible to design new material which is based on ultra-thin layers and this is now posing challenges for scientists, technologists and engineers in the assessment and utilisation of such new material. Molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) has become well established as a method for growing thin single crystal layers of semiconductors. Until recently, MBE was confined to the growth of III-V compounds and alloys, but now it is being used for group IV semiconductors and II-VI compounds. Examples of such work are given in this volume. MBE has one major advantage over other crystal growth techniques in that the structure of the growing layer can be continuously monitored using reflection high energy electron diffraction (RHEED). This technique has offered a rare bonus in that the time dependent intensity variations of RHEED can be used to determine growth rates and alloy composition rather precisely. Indeed, a great deal of new information about the kinetics of crystal growth from the vapour phase is beginning to emerge.

This volume contains the papers presented at the NATO Advanced Research Workshop in "Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction and Reflection Electron Imaging of Surfaces" held at the Koningshof conference center, Veldhoven, the Netherlands, June 15-19, 1987. The main topics of the workshop, Reflection High Energy Electron Diffraction (RHEED) and Reflection Electron Microscopy (REM), have a common basis in the diffraction processes which high energy electrons undergo when they interact with solid surfaces at grazing angles. However, while REM is a new technique developed on the basis of recent advances in transmission electron microscopy, RHEED is an old method in surface crystallography going back to the discovery of electron diffraction in 1927 by Davisson and Germer. Until the development of ultra high vacuum techniques in the 1960's made instruments using slow electrons more accessable, RHEED was the dominating electron diffraction technique. Since then and until recently the method of Low Energy Electron Diffraction (LEED) largely surpassed RHEED in popularity in surface studies. The two methods are closely related of course, each with its own specific advantages. The grazing angle geometry of RHEED has now become a very useful feature because this makes it ideally suited for combination with the thin growth technique of Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE). This combination allows in-situ studies of freshly grown and even growing surfaces, opening up new areas of research of both fundamental and technological importance.