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Abstract
Newton black films (NBF) can be obtained from solutions containing ionic surfactants. These thin structures have typical thickness of the order of 3 nm and are similar to biological membranes. An understanding of the NBF structure and stability is of relevance to problems concerned with the biophysics of the cell. From a practical point of view, the stability of NBFs determines the stability of dispersions and foams, which are relevant in a number of industrial areas such as foodstuffs, cosmetics or distillation. In this paper, we investigate the temperature dependence of the structure and electrostatics of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) NBFs using large-scale computer simulations. We show that high temperature black films exibit a dramatic change of the film roughness. Notably, the structural changes in the film occur without a significant modification of the total thickness. The degree of polarization of the water molecules and the electrostatic fields in the NBF also show a very weak dependence on temperature, suggesting that water remains strongly ordered in the NBF even at high temperatures ( ≈ 350 K). We conclude that the anomalous dielectric response observed in NBF at ambient temperature should also be present at high temperatures.
Acknowledgements
Financial support from the EPSRC-UK (GR/R39726/01) for FB and the MEC-Spain (BFM2000-0351-C03-0) for JF are gratefully acknowledge. We would also like to acknowledge Computer resources on HPCx, provided via the HPC Materials Chemistry Consortium and funded by EPSRC (portfolio grant EP/D504872) and computer resources and technical assistance provided by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center—Centro Nacional de Supercomputacion (Spain).
