The formation of high-density silver nanoparticles and a novel method to precisely control the spacing between nanoparticles by temperature are demonstrated for a tunable surface enhanced Raman scattering substrates. The high-density nanoparticle thin film is accomplished by self-assembling through the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique on a water surface and transferring the particle monolayer t...

Techniques for directing the assembly of metal or semiconductor quantum dots into novel superstructures have been extensively pursued over the past decades.1-3 Recent interest has been drawn toward 1-dimensional nanoscale building blocks such as nanotubes, nanowires, and nanorods.4-14 If these one-dimensional nanoscale building blocks can be ordered and rationally assembled into appropriate 2-d...

The Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique is an elegant protocol for the steered assembly of metal nanoparticles, the deposition pressure serving as a convenient parameter to tune the assembly. Adsorption of nanoparticles from the subphase to the air-water interface can provide further control of the process. Citrate-stabilized gold nanoparticles in the aqueous subphase are shown to assemble into ex...

Amphiphilic Ru(bpy)32+ complex (DC17Ru)—citratoperoxotitanate (CPT) —ditetradecylviologen (DC14V) triad nano-film was fabricated on quartz slab optical waveguide by organic-inorganic hybrid Langmuir-Blodgett method. Transient phosphorescence of the DC17Ru monolayer at 610 nm excited 532 pulsed laser observed SOWG spectroscopy. The partly quenched CPT layer and quenching enhanced DC14V underneat...

The miscibility, mechanical and morphological properties of mixed Langmuir and Langmuir-Blodgett monolayers prepared from the phospholipid 1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine and the perfluorinated fatty acid perfluorooctadecanoic acid have been studied as a function of film composition and subphase salinity. It was demonstrated here, for the first time, that the extent of surfactant mi...

Some fluoro-substituted liquid crystals mixed with arachidic acid in monolayers formed at air-liquid (Langmuir films) and air-solid substrate (Langmuir-Blodgett films) interfaces were investigated. Molecular organization in Langmuir films was determined on the basis of the analysis of the shape of the surface pressure-mean molecular area isotherm and observations made by means of a Brewster ang...

We present a scanning near-field optical microscope operating in reflection suitable for simultaneous bright field and fluorescence imaging. A non-coated pulled optical fibre is used in true reflection mode, i.e. both as emitter and collector. Beam splitters, dichroic mirrors and polarisers are combined to discriminate the different wavelength and polarisation signals. The distance between fibr...

The laboratory implementation of grazing incidence in-plane X-ray diffraction, using an unmodified commercial diffractometer, is described. Low resolution, high intensity measurements are illustrated in the study of the in-plane lattice parameters and texture of a thin polycrystalline ZnO film on glass, the in-plane order in Cd arachidate Langmuir-Blodgett films, and the depth dependence of lat...

Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films of arachidic acid (AA, CH3(CH2)18COOH) at the glass/air interface are investigated by sum-frequency generation (SFG) vibrational spectroscopy. The newly identified band at 2818 cm−1 in LB films has been attributed to a soft mode of the C-H vibration induced by the interaction (coupling) with the rest of the molecule near the glass substrate. The coherent responses o...

An ultra-thin hybrid film of amphiphilic iridium(III) complexes and synthetic saponite was manipulated by means of the modified Langmuir-Blodgett method. In the film deposited onto a quartz substrate, the external mixed molecular layer of amphiphilic iridium(III) complexes was reinforced by the inner layer of exfoliated synthetic saponite. As components of the molecular layer, two iridium(III) ...