ELASTOMERIC SUSPENDED MEMBRANES GENERATED VIA LANGMUIR-BLODGETT TRANSFER

Elastomeric freely suspended membranes have been prepared via Langmuir -Blodgett transfer of crosslinked monolayers of polyisoprenes with ant hracene side chains and sulfonate headgroups. The polymers, which have a chain length of approximately 540 repeat units and on average 8 ant hracene side chains per polymer molecule, were spread at an air-water interface from chloroform/ethanol solutions and laterally compressed t o an average area per molecule of 200 Angstrom(2). These monolayers we re cross-linked via irradiation with UV light of wavelength 305-420 nm and then transferred to a brass plate with a circular hole of 0.4 mm diameter. The approximately 40 nm thick cross-linked monolayers comple tely covered the hole. It was possible to elastically deform the resul ting suspended membrane by applying an overpressure from one side.