Clay-assisted disaggregation and stabilization in hemicyanine Langmuir-Blodgett films.

Hybrid Langmuir-Blodgett films consisting of an amphiphilic hemicyanine derivative and a smectite clay have been fabricated employing a clay suspension as the subphase. This hybridization was demonstrated to be a convenient and effective means of achieving complete disaggregation of dye chromophores in a Langmuir-Blodgett film without reducing chromophore density in the two-dimensional lattice. UV-visible electronic absorption and optical second-harmonic generation measurements indicated that the molecular alignment in the films was stabilized by the hybridization.