On the reproducibility of the electrical characteristics of Langmuir monolayers

This paper is aimed at resolving controversies in the literature over the reproducibility of surface potential and lateral conductance data on Langmuir monolayers (LM). It is shown that the alleged non-homogeneity (at the macroscopic level) in surface potential measurements on expanded monolayers must be an experimental artifact. In addition, the recently reported enhanced conductivity in a monolayer packed to a given critical density is confirmed for a phospholipid monolayer.