Monodisperse Surface Micelles of Nonpolar Amphiphiles in Langmuir Monolayers

Abstract

A small nonpolar amphiphile, namely, the semifluorinated alkane C8F17C16H33, forms monodisperse surface micelles [ca. 300 Å in diameter; see AFM image (a)] in which the fluorinated segments point outwards and the hydrocarbon segments inwards. A disklike model (b) allows the micelle size to be predicted from the lengths of the fluorinated and hydrocarbon segments of such molecules.