Bond-length conservation principle

A set of simple physical and chemical principles can be used to understand and predict the surface reconstruction or faceting, which occurs on oxide surfaces.8,9 These include (1) autocompensation of stable surfaces, (2) rehybridization of the dangling bond charge density, (3) formation of an insulating surface, (4) conservation of near-neighbor bond lengths (which minimize the formation of surface strain fields), and (5) surface kinetic factors. We shall briefly discuss all of these factors governing the surface reconstruction of metal oxide. 

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