In a review article, it was recalled that several decades of experimental and theoretical work had made it clear that most solids were subject to reconstruction at the surface. That is, the outermost substrate atoms rearranged themselves in response to changes in temperature, coverage, and other factors. Studies of W(100) and Mo(100) had been very useful in this development, and early low-energy electron diffraction studies of adsorption at these surfaces had revealed a large number of distinct phases which were impossible to explain by models which assumed the substrate to be passive. The discovery that the surfaces reconstructed necessitated a reinterpretation of the results, and showed that adatom/substrate and adatom/adatom interactions depended upon metal atom displacements. In general, substrate structural changes had a marked (and sometimes dominant) effect upon the kinetic and thermodynamic surface properties.

P.J.Estrup: Surface Science, 1994, 299-300, 722-30