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Title: Tracing the 4000 year history of organic thin films: From monolayers on liquids to multilayers on solids

Abstract

The recorded history of organic monolayer and multilayer thin films spans approximately 4000 years. Fatty-acid-based monolayers were deposited on water by the ancients for applications ranging from fortune telling in King Hammurabi's time (∼1800 BC, Mesopotamia) to stilling choppy waters for sailors and divers as reported by the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder in ∼78 AD, and then much later (1774) by the peripatetic American statesman and natural philosopher Benjamin Franklin, to Japanese “floating-ink” art (suminagashi) developed ∼1000 years ago. The modern science of organic monolayers began in the late-1800s/early-1900s with experiments by Lord Rayleigh and the important development by Agnes Pockels, followed two decades later by Irving Langmuir, of the tools and technology to measure the surface tension of liquids, the surface pressure of organic monolayers deposited on water, interfacial properties, molecular conformation of the organic layers, and phase transitions which occur upon compressing the monolayers. In 1935, Katherine Blodgett published a landmark paper showing that multilayers can be synthesized on solid substrates, with controlled thickness and composition, using an apparatus now known as the Langmuir-Blodgett (L-B) trough. A disadvantage of LB films for some applications is that they form weak physisorbed bonds to the substrate. In 1946, Bigelow,more » Pickett, and Zisman demonstrated, in another seminal paper, the growth of organic self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) via spontaneous adsorption from solution, rather than from the water/air interface, onto SiO{sub 2} and metal substrates. SAMs are close-packed two-dimensional organic crystals which exhibit strong covalent bonding to the substrate. The first multicomponent adsorbed monolayers and multilayer SAMs were produced in the early 1980s. Langmuir monolayers, L-B multilayers, and self-assembled mono- and multilayers have found an extraordinarily broad range of applications including controlled wetting, adhesion, electrochemistry, biocompatibility, molecular recognition, biosensing, cell biology, non-linear optics, molecular electronics, solar cells, read/write/erase memory, and magnetism.« less

Authors:
 [1]
  1. University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801 (United States)
Publication Date:
OSTI Identifier:
22412792
Resource Type:
Journal Article
Journal Name:
Applied physics reviews
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 2; Journal Issue: 1; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Journal ID: ISSN 1931-9401
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND SUPERFLUIDITY; ADHESION; ADSORPTION; CARBOXYLIC ACIDS; COVALENCE; CRYSTALS; ELECTROCHEMISTRY; INTERFACES; LAYERS; LIQUIDS; MAGNETISM; METALS; NONLINEAR OPTICS; PHASE TRANSFORMATIONS; SILICA; SILICON OXIDES; SOLAR CELLS; SUBSTRATES; SURFACE TENSION; THIN FILMS; TWO-DIMENSIONAL SYSTEMS

Citation Formats

Greene, J. E., Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan. Tracing the 4000 year history of organic thin films: From monolayers on liquids to multilayers on solids. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.1063/1.4907770.
Greene, J. E., Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, & National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan. Tracing the 4000 year history of organic thin films: From monolayers on liquids to multilayers on solids. United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4907770
Greene, J. E., Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping, and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan. 2015. "Tracing the 4000 year history of organic thin films: From monolayers on liquids to multilayers on solids". United States. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4907770.
@article{osti_22412792,
title = {Tracing the 4000 year history of organic thin films: From monolayers on liquids to multilayers on solids},
author = {Greene, J. E. and Linköping University, 581 83 Linköping and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taipei 10607, Taiwan},
abstractNote = {The recorded history of organic monolayer and multilayer thin films spans approximately 4000 years. Fatty-acid-based monolayers were deposited on water by the ancients for applications ranging from fortune telling in King Hammurabi's time (∼1800 BC, Mesopotamia) to stilling choppy waters for sailors and divers as reported by the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder in ∼78 AD, and then much later (1774) by the peripatetic American statesman and natural philosopher Benjamin Franklin, to Japanese “floating-ink” art (suminagashi) developed ∼1000 years ago. The modern science of organic monolayers began in the late-1800s/early-1900s with experiments by Lord Rayleigh and the important development by Agnes Pockels, followed two decades later by Irving Langmuir, of the tools and technology to measure the surface tension of liquids, the surface pressure of organic monolayers deposited on water, interfacial properties, molecular conformation of the organic layers, and phase transitions which occur upon compressing the monolayers. In 1935, Katherine Blodgett published a landmark paper showing that multilayers can be synthesized on solid substrates, with controlled thickness and composition, using an apparatus now known as the Langmuir-Blodgett (L-B) trough. A disadvantage of LB films for some applications is that they form weak physisorbed bonds to the substrate. In 1946, Bigelow, Pickett, and Zisman demonstrated, in another seminal paper, the growth of organic self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) via spontaneous adsorption from solution, rather than from the water/air interface, onto SiO{sub 2} and metal substrates. SAMs are close-packed two-dimensional organic crystals which exhibit strong covalent bonding to the substrate. The first multicomponent adsorbed monolayers and multilayer SAMs were produced in the early 1980s. Langmuir monolayers, L-B multilayers, and self-assembled mono- and multilayers have found an extraordinarily broad range of applications including controlled wetting, adhesion, electrochemistry, biocompatibility, molecular recognition, biosensing, cell biology, non-linear optics, molecular electronics, solar cells, read/write/erase memory, and magnetism.},
doi = {10.1063/1.4907770},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/22412792}, journal = {Applied physics reviews},
issn = {1931-9401},
number = 1,
volume = 2,
place = {United States},
year = {Sun Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Sun Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}