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 struc-tures 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.