Studies on the Fine Structures and Opical Properties of Ultrathin Molecular Films by Developing Ellipso-BAM.

有组织的分子膜最显著的特征之一是它们的薄。其中，单层膜的厚度小于几纳米，长期以来人们认为用显微镜直接观察这些膜几乎是不可能的。1991年，法国和德国的两个研究小组发明了布鲁斯特角度显微镜，使我们有了一种直接观察单层结构的新工具。本研究的目的之一是研制一种新的仪器，将布鲁斯特角显微镜和椭偏显微镜结合起来，同时观察单分子膜的结构和测量单分子膜的光学性质，并讨论这些分子体系的基本性质。在本研究项目中，我们使用了光弹性调制型椭偏仪。即使使用这种具有较高灵敏度的现代仪器，由于光束局限在一个狭窄的区域，由于灵敏度不足，我们也无法测量水面单层的光学性质，因此，我们遗憾地在新仪器的开发中无法获得良好的结果。然而，我们可以开发一种高性能的新型Brewster角显微镜，并将其应用于观察被吸附的单分子膜中的结构、不饱和长链酸单分子膜中的特征结构形成、单分子膜在压缩过程中的弛豫现象等。我们还成功地测量了透明固体衬底上单层结构的椭偏映射。这些研究结果以15篇原创科学论文的形式发表在美国和欧洲的期刊上。

One of the most characteristic features of organized molecular films is their thinness. Among them, the thickness of monolayers is less the a few nanometer and it has been considered for long time that it is almost impossible to observe these films directly with microscopy. In 1991, Brewster angle microscopy was invented by two groups of France and Germany and we can have a new tool to observe structures of mono-layers directly. One object of this research was to develop a new instrument to combine the Brewster angle microscopy and the ellipsometry to observe structures in monolayers and to measure optical properties of monolayers simultaneously, and to discuss basic properties of these molecular systems.In this research project, we used an instrument of ellipsmetry using photo-elastic modulation type. Even with this modem instrument of higher sensitivity, we could not measure optical properties of monolayers at the water surface due to the lack of sensitivity when beam of light is limited to a narrow area, to our regret So, we could not obtain good results in the development of the new instrument. However, we could develop a new Brewster angle microscope of high performance and applied it to observe structures in the adsorbed monolayers, characteristic structure formation in monolayers of unsaturated long-chain acids, relaxation phenomena in monolayers during compression, etc. We also succeeded to measure ellipsometric mapping of monolayer structures on a transparent solid substrate.These results were published as 15 original scientific papers to journals in America and Europe.