Chiral and herringbone symmetry breaking in water-surface monolayers

We report the observation from monolayers of eicosanoic acid in the L(2)' phase of three distinct out-of-plane first-order diffraction peaks, indicating molecular tilt in a nonsymmetry direction and hence the absence of mirror symmetry. At lower pressures the molecules tilt in the direction of their nearest neighbors. In this region we find a structural transition, which we tentatively identify as the rotator-herringbone transition L(2d)-L(2h).