Growth mechanism of Langmuir-Blodgett films

Abstract

Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) deposition is an astonishingly simple technique to grow well-ordered correlated metal-organic multilayers. To understand this growth mechanism, we have performed X-ray scattering and atomic force microscopic (AFM) studies on cadmium arachidate LB films exhibiting self-affine and logarithmic in-plane correlation at the interfaces. Using linear stochastic theory for interface evolution, it is proposed that a 1D deposition followed by a 2D desorption process is the growth mechanism of LB films. X-ray and AFM measurements confirm the crossover between these two growth regimes.