Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.


Science 17 August 2001:
Vol. 293. no. 5533, pp. 1292 - 1295
DOI: 10.1126/science.1060018

Reports

Stable Ordering in Langmuir-Blodgett Films

Dawn Y. Takamoto,1 Eray Aydil,1 Joseph A. Zasadzinski,1* Ani T. Ivanova,2 Daniel K. Schwartz,2dagger Tinglu Yang,3 Paul S. Cremer3

Defects in the layering of Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films can be eliminated by depositing from the appropriate monolayer phase at the air-water interface. LB films deposited from the hexagonal phase of cadmium arachidate (CdA2) at pH 7 spontaneously transform into the bulk soap structure, a centrosymmetric bilayer with an orthorhombic herringbone packing. A large wavelength folding mechanism accelerates the conversion between the two structures, leading to a disruption of the desired layering. At pH > 8.5, though it is more difficult to draw LB films, almost perfect layering is obtained due to the inability to convert from the as-deposited structure to the equilibrium one.

1 Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA.
2 Department of Chemistry, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118, USA.
3 Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: gorilla{at}engineering.ucsb.edu

dagger    Present address: Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.


Read the Full Text


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Atomic-scale dynamical structures of fatty acid bilayers observed by ultrafast electron crystallography.
S. Chen, M. T. Seidel, and A. H. Zewail (2005)
PNAS 102, 8854-8859
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »
Synergistic interactions of lipids and myelin basic protein.
Y. Hu, I. Doudevski, D. Wood, M. Moscarello, C. Husted, C. Genain, J. A. Zasadzinski, and J. Israelachvili (2004)
PNAS 101, 13466-13471
   Abstract »    Full Text »    PDF »



To Advertise     Find Products


Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)