  Clay mineral particles are interesting nanosized building blocks due to their
high aspect ratio and the chemical properties. The main interest in this
nanosized building blocks results essentially from the colloidal size and the
permanent structural charge of the particles. Smectites or swelling clay
minerals are naturally occurring nanomaterials that can be fully delaminated to
elementary clay mineral platelets in dilute aqueous dispersion. This dilute
aqueous smectite suspensions are well suited to convert into functional
nanofilms. The functionalization is performed by ion exchange reaction with
amphiphilic molecules carrying the desired functionality, such as chirality,
two photon absorption, energy transfer, optical nonlinearity and magnetism,
which are due to the nature of the amphiphilic cations and to the organization
of both the amphiphilic molecules and the elementary clay mineral platelets.
Controlling the structure of materials at the nanometre scale is of fundamental
importance for tailoring such materials properties. Langmuir Blodgett films are
known for a high degree of organisation of organic molecules. Fundamental
research into the organization of molecules at clay mineral platelets is
necessary to optimize the materials for specific applications. This paper gives
an overview of organo-clay hybrid Langmuir-Blodgett nano films.
