Abstract
Structural studies of wormlike micelles have so far mostly focused on the conformational properties of surfactant aggregates. The diffuse ionic atmosphere, which has a profound influence on various micellization phenomena such as thermodynamic stability and structural polymorphism, remains largely unexplored experimentally. In this report a strategy of contrast variation small-angle neutron scattering for this crucial structural study is outlined. Underlined by a general criterion established for unbiasedly identifying the length scale relevant to charge association from the spectral evolution, our analytical framework can provide a quantitative description of counterion distribution in a mathematically tractable manner. Our method can be conveniently extended to facilitate structural studies of complex multicomponent systems using contrast variation neutron scattering.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 66-71 |
| Number of pages | 6 |
| Journal | ACS Macro Letters |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 18 2022 |
Funding
This research was performed at the Spallation Neutron Source (SNS) and the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS), which are the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facilities operated by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Y.W. is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Early Career Research Program Award KC0402010, under Contract DE-AC05-00OR22725. Y.S. is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Materials and Science and Engineering Division. We gratefully appreciate the EQSANS and USANS beamtime from SNS.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences | |
| U.S. Department of Energy | |
| Office of Science | |
| Basic Energy Sciences | DE-AC05-00OR22725, KC0402010 |
| Oak Ridge National Laboratory | |
| Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering |