3

__________________________________________________________________________________

 

 

These are methods of deposition of thin organic (and bioorganic) films by the successive transfer of monolayers of surfactant compounds from the air-water interface onto the solid substrate.

 

 

List of materials used includes ordinary amphiphilic molecules of various classes, polymers, lipids, phthalocyanines, porphyrins, charge-transfer complexes and salts, polypeptides, enzymes, antibodies, and other proteins, nucleic acids.

 

 

History

 

         Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790):

Observation of oil spreading over the surface of water.

 

         Lord Rayleigh (1842-1919):

Evidence of oil monolayer existence at the air-water interface. Estimation of monolayer thickness (10-20 Å).

 

         Agnes Pockels (1862-1935):

Creation of the trough for study of spread monolayers. Registration of surface pressure-area isotherm. Calculation of area per molecule.

 

         Irving Langmuir (1881-1957):

Famous theory of surface phenomena, which in particular explains behaviour of surfactant compounds at the surface of water subphase. (Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1932.)