ABSTRACT
When surfactant molecules adsorb from solution onto a solid surface, they spontaneously form well-ordered assemblies such as monolayers, bilayers, or other structured clusters. These "self-assembled" thin films constitute nano-scale structures which find increasingly wide use in many technologies involving optical and electronic devices, sensors and transducers, surface modifiers for improving wettability and biocompatibility, protective and lubricate layers, and patternable materials. A modified version of atomic force microscopy (AFM) called a lateral force microscope (LFM) incorporates a quadrant optical detector that makes it possible not only to map surface topography but also to measure the forces between an AFM tip and the sample simultaneously. AFM imaging of the surface showed that the monolayer had been disrupted at the large load and high velocities. Using LFM, people can measure changes in surface interactions induced by environmental changes such as humidity.
