Surfactant layers at water surfaces

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Abstract
This review tries to summarize the progress that has been achieved in understanding surfactant monolayers, concentrating on fatty acids and phospholipids and trying to generalize the results. It is shown that surfactant monolayers exist in a variety of phases that are distinguished by internal and external order and a coupling or decoupling of various degrees of freedom. The interface also orients dipolar molecular moieties resulting in long range electrostatic repulsion. This causes peculiar shapes and superlattices of domains of coexisting phases. These features could be explored by introducing new experimental techniques, predominantly optical microscopies and surface X-ray scattering. These techniques are discussed together with other conventional and new ones to demonstrate which type of information could be derived. Also summarized is the status of theoretical description and simulations in relation to the experimental results.