Deposition Step Solution Spreading

The first step in the preparation of an LB film is the successful spreading of a monolayer of the material of interest, which may be molecular, polymeric, or particulate and need not be amphiphilic in the traditional sense. This is accomplished by depositing drops of a dilute solution of the material in an appropriate spreading solvent onto the water surface. The concentration is generally millimolar or less, and the solvent selected should be one that will spread across the surface rapidly and evaporate without remaining at the surface or dissolving into the subphase. Common spreading solvents include chloroform, benzene,... 

Fig. 2 The construction of a polymer-cushioned lipid bilayer membrane. (A) Architecture constructed in a sequential way first, onto the functionalized substrate a polymer layer (cushion) is deposited by adsorption from solution and covalent binding, followed by the (partial) covalent attachment of a lipid monolayer containing some anchor lipids as reactive elements (B) able to couple the whole monolayer to the polymer cushion. (C) Alternatively, a lipopolymer monolayer, organized, e.g., at the water-air interface can be co-spread with regular low-mass amphiphiles and then transferred as a mixed monolayer onto a solid support, prefunctionalized with reactive groups, able to bind covalently to the polymer chains of the lipopolymer molecules, (B). (D) By a fusion step (or a Langmuir Schaefer transfer) the distal lipid monolayer completes the polymer-tethered membrane architecture...

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