Abstract

Monolayers of amphiphiles have been established as most useful tools to study interac-tions and reactions at interfaces especially since new methods could be introduced to study them at microscopic and nanoscopic level. Thus very peculiar and regular structures of domains of coexisting phases could be detected by optical microscopies that resulted from the competition of short range attractive and long range repulsive interfa-cial forces. By surface X-Ray diffraction a wealth of mesophases were revealed in analogy to those of smectic liquid crystals. With newly developed methods like FTIR , X-Ray reflection and sum frequency generation one can now investigate many basic proc-esses in bio-and materials sciences as:

- DNA interactions at interfaces – Enzymatic interactions at interfaces – Ion binding and water structuring – Nanoparticle attachment as a basis of emulsion stabilization.