[Structure and dynamics of microemulsions in bulk, at interfaces, and in confined geometries]

The authors have been constructing a special purpose small angle neutron scattering spectrometer (SAND) in collaboration with IPNS of Argonne National Laboratory and Texaco Research Laboratories in Beacon, New York. The spectrometer, having a moderate neutron flux, will be uniquely suited for detailed studies of complex fluids in their various phases. This spectrometer will be fully available to general users of the small angle scattering community after a year of testing and upon installation of the auxiliary equipment. The general research objective of the MIT group is to continue studies of the microstructural relationship to phase-behavior in three-component microemulsion systems. Specifically, they shall study the (1) variation of bulk structures when a microemulsion undergoes a non-wetting to wetting transition, (2) correlating interfacial reflectivity measurements of these wetting transitions to the SANS results, (3) use the contrast variation technique they recently developed for measuring the mean and Gaussian curvatures of the surfactant sheet to study the structural inversion of water-in-oil to oil-in-water microemulsions and the transition of disordered bicontinuous microemulsion to ordered lamellar phases, (4) investigation of the effects of spatial confinement on the phase behavior and structure of bicontinuous microemulsions, and finally (5) they shall continue the study of the recently discovered non-exponential relaxation of droplet density fluctuations near the critical and percolation points in water-in-oil droplet microemulsions