  Many nematic liquid crystals are not able to form stable monolayers at the
air/water interface because of the lack of a polar headgroup. A possible way to
obtain a monomolecular film with these compounds is to incorporate them into
host monolayers of amphiphilic compounds. Stable monolayers containing a high
fraction of the liquid crystal can be obtained. We have prepared stable and
transferable monolayers of MBBA (which is not an amphiphilic compound) using
octadecylmalonic acid (OMA) as host. The monolayers at the air/water interface
have been characterized by measurements of surface-pressure/area and
surface-potential/area isotherms. The monolayers deposited on quartz plates
have been characterized by determining the transfer ratio and by spectroscopic
measurements.
