  Many nematic liquid crystals (NLCs) lack a polar headgroup and thus are not
able to form stable monolayers at the air/water (a/w) interface. A way to
obtain monomolecular films of these compounds is to incorporate them into host
monolayers of amphiphilic molecules. We report a comparative investigation of
mixed films of Calix[4]resorcinarene O-octacarboxymethylated (CRO) with the
non-amphiphilic NLC MBBA and with the amphiphilic stearic acid (SA). The
comparative study is useful for a better understanding of the characteristics
of the CRO-MBBA mixed films. Surface-pressure and surface-potential
measurements on the monolayers at a/w interface, as well as ellipsometric and
spectroscopic measurements on transferred Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films, confirm
that MBBA is additively incorporated into CRO films.

Soft Condensed Matter