NOVEL PATTERN-FORMATION IN THE COLLAPSE PROCESS OF FLOATING MONOLAYERAT THE AIR-WATER-INTERFACE

We have observed a remarkable two-armed spiral in tile collapse proces s of a floating monolayer at the air-water interface by phase contrast microscopy. This demonstrates that tile floating monolayer as a form of soft condensed matter reorganizes itself due to a certain kind of m acroscopic or collective behavior of molecules as it collapses. This p attern formation is caused by the breakdown of a critical dynamical ba lance between the deformation of solid domain and the applied surface pressure. The fragility as well as the flexibility of the floating mon olayer can be associated with the observed pattern growth. There are a lso observed interesting, periodically arranged collections of molecul es in numerous collapsed regions.