Abstract:The formation of Langmuir monolayers at the air-water interface has long been believed to be limited to amphiphilic molecules containing a hydrophobic chain and a hydrophilic headgroup. Here we report the formation of crystalline mono-and multilayer self-assemblics of oligothiophenes, a class of aromatic nonamphiphilic molecules, selfaggregated at the air-water interface. As model systems we have examined the deposition of quaterthiophene ( S , ) , quinquethiophene (SJ, and sexithiophene (S,) from chloroform solutions on the water surface. The structures of the films were dctermined by surface pressure-area isotherms, by scanning force microscopy (SFM) after transfer of the films onto atomically smooth mica, by cryo-transmission electron microscopy (Cryo-TEM) on vitreous ice, and by grazing incidence synchrotron X-ray diffraction (GID) directly on the water surface. S, forms two polymorphic crystalline multilayers. In polymorph K. of structure very similar to
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