STRUCTURE AND STABILITY OF LANGMUIR-BLODGETT-KUHN MULTILAYERS CONTAINING HAIRY-ROD COPOLYMERS

The microstructure and thermal stability of Langmuir-Blodgett-Kuhn mul tilayers containing rod-like polyglutamate copolymers having flexible aliphatic side chains have been studied with x-ray and neutron reflect ometry. Upon annealing at 84-degrees-C the multilayer structure change s in a manner which is dependent upon the degree of orientation of the rod-like backbones and therefore upon the flow dynamics of the deposi tion. A sample deposited with a highly convergent flow loses the bilay er structure induced by deposition, whereas samples with less highly a ligned backbones may not undergo this relaxation as readily.