Formation of liquid crystalline phases from a langmuir monolayer

Abstract

We report the transformation of a two-dimensional monolayer at the air-water interface into three-dimensional liquid crystalline phases on continuous tuning of the surface molecular density. On compressing a 4'-n-octyl-4-cyanobiphenyl monolayer, at room temperature, we obtain multilayer domains whose thicknesses range from a few layers to hundreds of layers. Above 28 C, these domains undergo a phase transition and change to much thicker lenslike domains. On expansion, these domains revert to the monolayer. Although these domains originate from a monolayer, we find that they exhibit features typical of liquid crystals.