David L. Allara, Atul N. Parikh, and Elizabeth Judge, Journal of Chemical Physics 100, 1761 (1994)

Partial monolayers of uniform length alkyl chains [CH3(CH2) n –; n=10–21] bonded at constant coverage onto a disordered lattice of silanol groups on amorphous SiO2, exhibit a distinct change in surfacewetting behavior for 14≤n≤17 which correlates closely with a significant shift in the average conformational ordering of the chains. These data provide definitive evidence for the existence of a family of surface‐constrained, intermediately ordered phases of discrete length, flexible chains and imply that broad classes of these families exist.