X-ray reflectivity analysis of self assembled nano patterns

Foamlike, cellular structures of the monolayer of organic capped nanoparticles can sometimes be observed on liquid surfaces. Professor M. K. Sanyal (Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, India) and his lab members studied the time evolution in the structure and morphology of transferred monolayers of gold-thiol nanoparticles, formed at the air-water interface at different surface pressure, on to a silicon surface. The research group employed two complementary techniques, X-ray reflectivity and atomic force microscopy (AFM), to see the whole drying-mediated self-assembly of nanoparticles. For more information, see the paper, "Nanopattern formation in self-assembled monolayers of thiol-capped Au nanocrystals", R. Banerjee et al., Phys. Rev. E80, 056204 (2009).