Surface order and structure studies of polymer-solid interface

The growth, structure and properties of bilayer molecular assembly of amino propyl triethoxy silane (APTES) molecules attached with cinnamoyl moieties produced on flat glass and quartz plates by spontaneous adsorption from organic solutions have been investigated. Quantitative infrared ATR. wettability measurement and UV spectroscopy have been used to study the growth of the molecular assembly. The deposited molecular assembly was irradiated with a linearly polarized UV light to create anisotropic surface structure. The atomic force microscope (AFM) studies of these films have shown that the dimerized molecules are arranged in closely packed, nearly parallel arrays. The structure thus created at the polymer-solid interface has been shown to produce uniform planar orientation of liquid crystals. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.