New Structural Features Appear in Thermally Treated Langmuir-Blodgett Protein Multilayers

Advanced synchrotron radiation (SR) sources have created many new opportunities for research on the hierarchical structural organization of macromolecular materials. Indeed, micro- and nanobeam GISAXS (grazing incidence small-angle X-ray scattering) techniques were successfully used at the ESRF for probing surface and near-surface organization of 2D – ordered Langmuir-Blodgett protein multilayers (MLs), in particular processes related to thermal annealing. Micro-and nano-GISAXS not only confirm in-plane 2D ordering of MLs, but also reveal an increased correlation between the layers, improving their packing after heating and cooling to room temperature.