Phase diagram of the CF4 monolayer and bilayer on graphite

We report an experimental study of physisorbed monolayers and bilayers of CF4 on graphite using infrared reflection absorption spectroscopy supplemented by ellipsometry. The symmetric C–F stretch mode ν3 near 1283 cm−1 in the gas is strongly blue shifted in the film by dynamic dipole coupling. This blue shift provides a very sensitive measure of the inter-molecular spacing in the monolayer and, less directly, in the bilayer. We find that important corrections are necessary to the volumetric coverage scales used in previous heat capacity and x-ray diffraction studies of this system. This requires quantitative and some qualitative changes to the previously proposed phase diagram. We find evidence for a new phase transition in the middle of the hexagonal incommensurate region and construct new phase diagrams in both the variables coverage-temperature and chemical potential-temperature. We determine the compressibility and thermal expansion in the low-pressure hexagonal incommensurate phase and values for the entropy change in several phase transitions. Below about 55 K there is evidence of solution of up to 7% of an impurity, most likely CO, in our monolayer but not the bilayer film