A study of Langmuir–Blodgett thin film for organic vapor detection

In this work, arachidic acid was deposited onto a quartz crystal using a standard Langmuir–Blodgett (LB) thin film deposition procedure. Quartz Crystal Microbalance (QCM) technique was used to monitor the reproducibility of the LB film monolayer and was employed to study the organic vapor sensing properties of chloroform, toluene, benzene, ethyl alcohol and isopropyl alcohol. QCM results show that arachidic acid monolayer was successfully organised and deposited from the water surface onto a quartz crystal substrate. This LB film is found to be highly sensitive and selective to chloroform vapor than other vapors. The response of the sample against chloroform is fast, large and reversible.