Interaction between droplets in a ternary microemulsion evaluated by the relative form factor method

Abstract

This paper describes the concentration dependence of the interaction between water droplets coated by a surfactant monolayer using the contrast variation small-angle neutron scattering technique. In the first part, we explain the idea of how to extract a relatively model free structure factor from the scattering data, which is called the relative form factor method. In the second part, the experimental results for the shape of the droplets (form factor) are described. In the third part the relatively model free structure factor is shown, and finally the concentration dependence of the interaction potential between droplets is discussed. The result indicates the validity of the relative form factor method, and the importance of the estimation of the model free structure factor to discuss the nature of structure formation in microemulsion systems.