Surface plasmon resonance study of the spreading of a liquid-crystal smectic-A droplet on a gold substrate

We report a study of the spreading of liquid-crystal smectic-A droplets whi ch completely wet a Sold substrate. After the initial spreading of a molecu lar precursor layer, the droplets develop a complex terraced structure cons isting of several monolayers and one bilayer spreading at different rates. During the late stage of spreading the droplet height decreases via a serie s of layer-by-layer shrinkages until a final state is reached which consist s of a single dense monolayer.