Vibrational spectroscopy of thin films and nanostructures by inelastic nuclear resonant scattering

The technique of inelastic nuclear resonant scattering is applied to measur e the phonon density of states of thin films and nanostructured materials. Interference effects in grazing incidence geometry significantly enhance th e inelastic signal from low-dimensional systems. Combined with the oustandi ng brilliance of modem synchrotron radiation sources this allows one to det ermine vibrational properties with monolayer sensitivity. An introduction i nto the basic principles of the method is given, and several experimental e xamples are discussed.