This book offers a clear and experiment-driven introduction to the materials science of surfaces and thin films. It includes only simple mathematics and numerous illustrations to help develop an intuitive understanding of how atomic level processes relate to macroscopic variables such as temperature, deposition rate, and energies. The book starts by addressing properties of clean surfaces and surfaces with adsorbed atoms on them, and advances to discussion of the coalescence, growth, and thickening of thin solid films for various applications.