Langmuir-Blodgett Films Transfer of Lipid Monolayers on Solids

9 Langmuir-Blodgett Films (Transfer of Lipid Monolayers on Solids) 

LB film technology is rapidly developing in areas such as 

Micro-lithography Solid-state polymerization Light guiding, electron tunneling Medical diagnostic chips Photovoltaic effects 

In the case of films such as Mg-stearate, if one dips a clean glass slide through the film, a monolayer is adsorbed on the down-stroke. Another layer is adsorbed on the up-stroke. Under careful conditions, one may make LB films with multilayers (varying from a few layers to over thousands). One can monitor the adsorption by measuring the decrease in II on each stroke. If no adsorption takes place, then one observes no change in surface pressure. There are some lipids, such as cholesterol, which do not form LB films. There are also other methods, such as 

STM (scanning tunneling microscope) and AFM (atomic force microscope) 

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