Development of periodic order in disordered surfactant-solution phases

Abstract

The scattering peak in an isotropic surfactant solution evolves into a Bragg diffraction peak as the isotropic solution undergoes a transition to a neighbouring lamellar liquid crystalline phase. The scattering peak in the isotropic phase may thus be viewed as premonitory: the dominant fluctuations of structure and composition in the isotropic phase anticipate the transition to the lamellar phase. The phenomenon is illustrated here in a lattice model of surfactant solutions that had been proposed earlier.