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Fourier transform IR measurements of Langmuir–Blodgett monolayers have been made with both grazing incidence reflection and transmission techniques. The reflection arrangement at incident angles from 85° to 88° has the electric field component perpendicular to the substrate surface while the standard transmission arrangement has the electric field component in the plane of the film. These techniques were used to explore the anisotropic arrangement of cadmium arachidate molecules perpendicular and parallel to the monolayer plane. The implication of these results for characterizing the orientational anisotropy of chemical groups in thin polymer films is also discussed. In addition, the question of uniaxial and biaxial orientation in the monolayer plane was addressed because of the importance of intermolecular packing on both the extent and rate of polymerization in unsaturated fatty acid monolayer components which form synthetic membranes.
Rabolt et al. (Sat,) studied this question.