Department of Physical Chemistry and Applied Thermodynamics, University of Córdoba, Campus de Rabanales, Edificio Marie Curie, Córdoba E-14014, Spain.
Adv Colloid Interface Sci. 2012 May 15;173:12-22. doi: 10.1016/j.cis.2012.02.002. Epub 2012 Feb 20.
The Brewster Angle Microscopy (BAM) is a powerful microscopy technique allowing the in situ visualization of the morphology of Langmuir monolayers at the air/water interface. The use of the BAM for attaining structural insights in the molecular arrangement of the Langmuir monolayers is widespread. In this review, we examine the reflection of a Langmuir monolayer under a rather different perspective than classical: the influence of the polar headgroup of the amphiphiles in the BAM images is taken into account. The relevance of the polar headgroup as the main cause of the BAM features has been the focus of a reduced number of BAM studies. An emerging experimental and theoretical framework from recent bibliography is discussed. Different theoretical scenarios are considered, concerning the size and absorption of radiation of the polar headgroup. Two qualitative examples showing physical phenomena regarding the reflectivity changes in a BAM experiments are discussed. The anisotropy in the BAM images as inner textures is of special interest. Quantitative structural information of the molecular arrangement of the monolayer is obtained by simulating the textures of the domains observed. The quantitative assessment of the detailed molecular arrangement of the polar headgroup by BAM is highly valuable, as this information can hardly be obtained from other experimental techniques. The procedure for extracting quantitative structural data from the experimental BAM pictures is revised in detail from the recent bibliography for further application of this model to different Langmuir monolayers.
布鲁斯特角显微镜（BAM）是一种强大的显微镜技术，可在空气/水界面原位观察朗缪尔单分子层的形态。BAM 被广泛用于获得朗缪尔单分子层分子排列的结构见解。在这篇综述中，我们从一个与经典方法不同的角度来考察朗缪尔单层的反射：考虑了两亲物的极性头基对 BAM 图像的影响。极性头基作为 BAM 特征的主要原因的相关性是少数 BAM 研究的重点。讨论了最近文献中出现的一个实验和理论框架。考虑了涉及极性头基大小和辐射吸收的不同理论情景。讨论了两个定性示例，这些示例展示了 BAM 实验中关于反射率变化的物理现象。BAM 图像中的各向异性作为内部纹理特别有趣。通过模拟观察到的域的纹理，可以获得单层分子排列的定量结构信息。BAM 对极性头基的详细分子排列进行定量评估非常有价值，因为很难从其他实验技术中获得此信息。从最近的文献中详细修订了从实验 BAM 图像中提取定量结构数据的过程，以便将该模型进一步应用于不同的朗缪尔单层。
