Langmuir-Blodgett filmA Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) film is a set of monolayers, or layers of organic material one molecule thick, deposited on a solid substrate. An LB film can consist of a single layer or many, up to a depth of several visible-light wavelength s. The term Langmuir-Blodgett comes from the names of a research scientist and his assistant, Irving Langmuir and Katherine Blodgett, who discovered unique properties of thin films in the early 1900s. Langmuir's original work involved the transfer of monolayers from liquid to solid substrates. Several years later, Blodgett expanded on Langmuir's research to include the deposition of multi-layer films on solid substrates. By transferring monolayers of organic material from a liquid to a solid substrate, the structure of the film can be controlled at the molecular level. Such films exhibit various electrochemical and photochemical properties. This has led some researchers to pursue LB films as a possible structure for integrated circuits ( IC s). Ultimately, it might be possible to construct an LB-film memory chip in which each data bit is represented by a single molecule. Complex switching networks might be fabricated onto multilayer LB-films chips.
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| Last updated on:
Sep 21, 2005 |
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