Full text
| |
| Author(s): |
Moema de Barros e Silva Botelho
Total Authors: 1
|
| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | São Carlos. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Física de São Carlos (IFSC/BT) |
| Defense date: | 2009-07-13 |
| Examining board members: |
Paulo Barbeitas Miranda;
Cleber Renato Mendonça;
Mario Jose Politi
|
| Advisor: | Paulo Barbeitas Miranda |
| Abstract | |
The study of charged interfaces is important for understanding several phenomena in polymer and colloid science, as well as in molecular biology. Even though this topic has benn extensively investigated, there are many open issues, such as details of ion-ion interactions. In this context, this work investigates charge inversion in Langmuir films of DMPA (dimyristoilphosphatidic acid - an anionic phospholipid) spread on aqueous solutions of LaCl3. Similar effects have been previously observed for DMPA films on subphases containing BaCl2 and CsI, but charge inversion for DMPA monolayers spread on LaCl3 solutions has been recently reported for Lanthanum Chloride concentrations that are four orders of magnitude lower than predicted by ion-ion correlation theories. We have performed surface tension, surface potential, sum-frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy and Brewster angle microscopy experiments, as well as calculations of monolayer ionization, with the goal of confirming charge inversion and providing additional structural information for this system. It was observed that the addition of trivalent ions in the subphase induced the formation of domains in the DMPA monolayers, sparking our interest in obtaining images by SFG microscopy of these films. Therefore, besides the study of DMPA Langmuir films on subphases containing LaCl3, we have also designed an SFG microscope. (AU) | |