X-ray scattering from thin organic films and multilayers

The real structure of LB-multilayers prepared with fatty-acid salts is dominated by finite-sized scattering aggregates. Their different length scales become visible using AFM. It shows that not the whole substrate is wetted by the film. The molecular order is restricted into domains. These micrometer domains are not homogeneous. They contain mesoscopic subdomains of different heights which vary in steps of double layers. Finally high-resolution AFM-maps display a nearly hexagonal arrangement of molecules within subgrains with a diameter of several 10 nm. This domain structure has to be taken into account when interpreting X-ray diffraction data. The size of the crystalline aggregates is obtained by means of X-ray grazing incidence diffraction. On the mesoscopic scale the domain size is determined by X-ray diffuse scattering experiments. Because Sinha’s model fails for the present kind of multilayers, we used another approach for data analysis. The lateral correlation length caused by height fluctuations is estimated without knowledge of a definite correlation function. Additionally the mosaicity of the domain orientation can be taken into account