Thermal stability and ordering study of long- and short-alkyl chain phosphonic acid multilayers.

Long-range order evolution of self-assembled phosphonic acid multilayers as a function of temperature is studied here for two molecules with different alkyl chain length. By using synchrotron conventional diffraction, distinct order configurations are retrieved on phosphonic acid multilayers and their thermodynamic behavior monitored by energy-dispersive diffraction. This later technique allows us to observe the system behavior near order-disorder temperatures, as well as to determine the most stable configurations in the range from room temperature up to 120 °C.