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Formation of Chiral Interdigitated Multilayers at the Air-Liquid Interface Through Acid-Base Interactions
1I. Kuzmenko, R. Buller, M. Lahav, L. Leiserowitz, Department of Materials and Interfaces, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel. W. G. Bouwman and K. Kjaer, Department of Solid State Physics, Riso National Laboratory, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark. J. Als-Nielsen, Niels Bohr Institute, H. C. Orsted Laboratory, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
Abstract:
Thin interdigitated films composed of a long-chain, water-insoluble chiral acid (p-pentadecylmandelic acid of absolute configuration R) and a water-soluble chiral base (phenylethylamine, R') were constructed at the air-solution interface. The (R, R') structure was characterized to near-atomic resolution by grazing-incidence x-ray diffraction (GIXD). The two diastereomeric systems, (R, R') and (R, S'), demonstrate similar surface pressure-molecular area isotherms, but their structures are completely different on the molecular level, as monitored by GIXD. Complementary data on these two architectures were provided by atomic force microscopy.