Control of the molecular in-plane orientation in Langmuir-Blodgett films by shearing

Shearing of a Langmuir film by a rotating disk can induce orientation of molecules at the gas-water interface. Monolayers with such local anisotropy may be transferred onto a solid substrate by the Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique and give multilayer films which exhibit a preferred molecular orientation within the plane of the multilayers. This approach allows one, for the first time, to control in-plane anisotropy of Langmuir and LB films and could be a new way to build ordered architecture from molecular bricks using the LB technique.