Investigation of Polymerized Phospholipid Monolayer Thin Film Structures by Energy- Filtered Transmission Electron Diffraction

Abstract

The photopolymerizable, conductive, and chromatic behavior of diacetylene containing films has lead to a number of investigations into possible applications. For example, when diacetylene films were investigated as photoresists it was demonstrated that 50 nm resolution could be achieved by electron lithography. Polymerized diacetylene layers display enviromentally dependent chromatic transitions and thus have been studied for sensor applications. Single crystals of polymerized diacetylene films belong to a class of one-dimensional semiconductors. Thus, conductive materials have been constructed using extended multilayers and monolayer of such polymers. For example, the conductive and self-supportive nature of films containing polymerized diacetylene makes them ideal for imaging large embedded molecules. The purpose of this article is to report the details of preparation of ultrathin Langmuir-Blodgett deposited phospholipid films containing polymerized diacetylene groups and analysis of the energy filtered electron diffraction spot intensities. This work shows promise that useful structural information of such systems can be obtained by TEM where owing to their finite grain size and radiation sensitivity,