The ingenious idea of surface limited deposition is among the brightest achievements of Radoslav Adzic. The proposed by his group in the beginning of this century approach of surface limited redox replacement (SLRR) for realization of monolayer thick coatings with catalytically active metals and alloys was used as foundation from others for the development of epitaxial thin film growth methods. Central stage in this direction takes the use of SLRR approach for coating nanoparticles and continuous nanoporous metal layers with ultrathin films of metal, layered bi-metallic structures, and/or alloys with specific functionality. Successful outcome of this coating renders the final product remarkably active and durable catalyst.

In this talk, the direct use of SLRR based protocols for the growth of layered bi-metallic films and alloys with targeted functionality. Specific consideration will be given to co- deposition modes in the systems Ag-Cu and Au-Cu. Factors controlling the quality of the deposited films in terms of morphology, orientation and composition will be comparatively considered. Emphasis will be placed on the thermodynamic miscibility of the metals participating in the deposition process as a factor controlling the final growth outcome in both cases; layered structures with sharp interface boundary in the Ag-Cu system and a single phase alloy in the Au-Cu system upon application of identical growth protocols. Results of electrochemical and SEM / STM characterization of the morphology, structure and/or orientation of the deposited films will be presented and critically discussed. Also, the parting behavior of both components upon anodic polarization scans will be considered in detail and studied with emphasis of post-anodization morphological characteristics of the remaining structures.

The discussion on the catalyst processing component based on coating of above described bi-metallic structures with ultra thin Pt and/or Pd layers will be the conclusion of this talk. It will be garnered by the demonstration of results of activity and durability testing of accordingly developed catalysts for organic fuel oxidation and/or nitrogen electrochemistry. Finally, a glimpse into the future of this rapidly developing field catalyst design at the atomic scale will be also provided.