Bulk and surface structure of a ternary microemulsion
- Massachusetts Inst. of Tech., Cambridge, MA (United States)
- National Inst. of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD (United States). Reactor Radiation Div.
Microemulsions are isotropic mixtures of water, oil, and surfactant which self-assemble to form interfacial monolayers with a characteristic length scale on the order of hundreds of Angstroms. Small angle neutron scattering was sued to determine the bulk structure of a water-octane-C{sub 10}E{sub 4} bicontinuous microemulsion. The mean curvature of the surfactant film was verified to be near zero by independently measuring the scattering contributions form the water-surfactant and oil-surfactant interfaces through hydrogen-deuterium contrast variation. The exponentially damped, oscillatory scattering length density profile of the microemulsion near a hydrophobic silicon surface was also observed with neutron reflectivity. The surface reflectivity results as well as the bulk small angle scattering measurements are explained using a simple Ginzburg-Landau theory.
- DOE Contract Number:
- FG02-90ER45429
- OSTI ID:
- 225265
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-941144--; ISBN 1-55899-278-2
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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