Nano Dimensional Hybrid Organo-clay Langmuir-Blodgett Films

Abstract

Abstract:Clay mineral particles are interesting nanosized building blocks due to their high aspect ratio and the chemical properties. The main interest in this nanosized building blocks results essentially from the colloidal size and the permanent structural charge of the particles. Smectites or swelling clay minerals are naturally occurring nanomaterials that can be fully delaminated to elementary clay mineral platelets in dilute aqueous dispersion. This dilute aqueous smectite suspensions are well suited to convert into functional nanofilms. The functionalization is performed by ion exchange reaction with amphiphilic molecules carrying the desired functionality, such as chirality, two photon absorption, energy transfer, optical nonlinearity and magnetism, which are due to the nature of the amphiphilic cations and to the organization of both the amphiphilic molecules and the elementary clay mineral platelets. Controlling the structure of materials at the nanometre scale is of fundamental importance for tailoring such materials properties. Langmuir Blodgett films are known for a high degree of organisation of organic molecules. Fundamental research into the organization of molecules at clay mineral platelets is necessary to optimize the materials for specific applications. This paper gives an overview of organo-clay hybrid Langmuir-Blodgett nano films.

Unique supramolecular assembly through Langmuir – Blodgett (LB) technique

“…Of late Molecular electronics has been emerged as an important technology for the 21st century [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] . The LB technique provides one of the few methods of preparing organized molecular assemblies which are the pre-requisites for molecular electronic devices.…”

“…Recently thin film science have attracted a great attention due to their many practical and commercial applications in various fields, such as sensors [7, 8], detectors [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], surface coating [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], optical signal processing [9, 10, 11], switching devices [12, 13, 14], molecular electronic devices [15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20], nonlinear optics and models mimicking biological membranes [21, 22, 23], nanoarchitectonics as well as molecular machine [24, 25, 26]. Generally, the basic requirement for such applications are,- a perfectly organized molecular thin films having specific properties, careful alignment of the molecules and a substrate which have very good stability with respect to thermal and chemical changes.…”

“…Thin films with carefully designed structures and properties have attracted a great deal of interest in recent years [1][2][3][4][5][6] due to their potential applications in a number of different fields, such as sensors [7][8] , detectors [1][2][3][4][5][6] , surface coating [1][2][3][4][5][6] , optical signal processing [9][10][11] , digital optical switching devices [12][13][14] , molecular electronic devices [15][16][17][18][19][20] , nonlinear optics and models mimicking biological membranes [21][22][23] . These applications require, in general, well ordered films consisting of molecules with specific properties, carefully aligned with respect to each other and the substrates possessing high degree of stability to thermal and chemical changes.…”

Temperature and concentration dependence of J-aggregate of a cyanine dye in a Laponite film fabricated by Langmuir–Blodgett technique

“…Recently construction of nano structured organo-clay hybrid materials in thin films is an important target of modern materials research (Hussain et al, 2013a(Hussain et al, , 2013bSchoonheydt, 2014). The research has been motivated by a purpose of developing functional materials such as sensors, electrode-modifiers, nonlinear optical devices and pyroelectric materials (Czikkely et al, 1970;Ichinose et al, 1995;Kotov et al, 1997;Kuhn and Kuhn, 1996;Lvov et al, 1996;and Tsutsumi et al, 1992).…”

“…The LB technique is one of the most useful methods for arranging various kinds of molecules of different functionality into uniform monolayer assemblies by controlling their alignment and orientation (Paul et al, 2009;Hussain et al, 2013b). With the help of this technique, it is possible to fabricate an inorganic-organic hybrid film.…”