New scattering techniques to characterise the structure of solid monolayers adsorbed from condensed phases to solid substrates

Incoherent elastic neutron scattering is demonstrated to be a powerful technique for the investigation of molecular layers adsorbed at buried solid/liquid interfaces. Examples of the system exhibiting the formation of solid monolayers include alkanes, alcohols and organic acids adsorbed from their liquids and organic acids adsorbed from alkane solution. The behaviour of these systems is in marked contrast to that of a simple liquid crystalline molecule which does not show any evidence of forming a solid adsorbed monolayer. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.