“…In own recent work, in a combined experimental/theoretical effort, the so-called Al-I terminated a-Al 2 O 3 (0001) surface [18][19][20][21][22] as the most stable alumina surface in vacuum, [19][20][21][22] further a hydroxylated a-Al 2 O 3 (0001), 21,23 as well as O-terminated a-Al 2 O 3 (1% 102) 24 and O-terminated a-Al 2 O 3 (11% 20) 25 surfaces, all in contact with small amounts of water were studied with steady-state VSF spectroscopy, mostly to characterize the vibrations of interfacial O-H (or O-D) bonds. From the theory side, periodic Density Functional Theory (DFT) was used, either stationary and together with Normal Mode Analysis (NMA), 20,21,24,25 or in the form of ab initio molecular dynamics (AIMD) in combination with Time-dependent Correlation Function (TCF) methods, 22,23 to characterize adsorbate vibrations. The AIMD/TCF approach is computationally costly but also very powerful, as it accounts for Vibrational Density Of States (VDOS) curves and even for spectra, IR and VSF, 22,23 beyond the harmonic approximation and it explicitly includes the effects of temperature, which allows for direct comparison between simulations and experiments.…”