Instrumentation for the Studies of Organic Thin Films

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Various instrumentation that is collectively directed to the experimental determination of the structure and dynamics of polymers, proteins, polypeptides, surfactants and low molecular weight organic molecules at interfaces will be purchased with funds from the Academic Research Infrastructure Program. The instrumentation to be acquired includes: 1) a Brewster angle microscope/optical polarimeter, 2) a SPEX Fluorolog 212 spectrofluorometer, 3) a TopoMetrix TMX-2000 scanning probe microscope, and 4) a nanocalorimeter. The instrumentation will be used to study organic thin films composed of low-molecular weight amphiphiles, synthetic polymers or proteins with thicknesses ranging from 10 to 1000 Angstroms. The individual topics include: the morphology and spectroscopy of Langmuir and Langmuir-Blodgett films; monolayers subjected to homogeneous surface flow; domain formation, relaxation behavior and surface properties of thin solid films including lateral structure within self-assembled monolayers; and thermal transitions in ultrathin solid films. A microscope/optical polarimeter, spectrofluorometer, a scanning probe microscope and a nanocalorimeter will be acquired to study organic thin films composed of low-molecular weight compounds, synthetic polymers and proteins.