Langmuir films of anthracene derivatives on liquid mercury I: Symmetric molecules

The structure and phase sequence of liquid-mercury-supported Langmuir films (LFs) of two symmetric acenes, anthracene and anthraquinone, were studied by surface tensiometry and X-ray diffraction. At low coverage, both form a monolayer of surface-parallel, flat-lying, molecules. At high coverage, we find a monolayer of side-lying molecules, where the molecular plane is surface-normal, and the molecular long axis is surfaceparallel. None of these phases exhibit long-range in-plane order.