There is very little known about the surface structures of transition metal oxides, but their bulk crystal structures are well researched. The approach to determine the surface structure is to assume the oxides are ideal crystal, where the bulk atomic arrangement is maintained up to and including the surface plane. The surfaces will be generated by cleavages along the planes of the bulk crystal structure. However, when a crystal is cleaved along a particular plane, the position of surface ions will differ from the bulk structure. Newly created surfaces will tend to minimize the surface Gibbs energy, through reconstruction, to obtain the most thermodynamically stable surface. The stability of these surface structures are evaluated by surface polarity, the degree of coordinative unsaturation and defect sites.