Amphiphile Diffusion in Cubic Lyotropic Mesophases

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Abstract
The phase equilibria of systems composed of a surface-active agent and water are usually complex, involving normal solutions, crystalline phases, and a variety of liquid crystalline phases. The most powerful method for investigating the structure of the liquid crystalline phases is X-ray diffraction. (A review on this subject has recently been given by Fontell1.) While these X-ray studies have led to some generally accepted structural models for several anisotropic mesophases there is still considerable controversy regarding the structure of the optically isotropic cubic mesophases which form in many binary and ternary soap systems. An important reason for this is that for many cubic phases the number of X-ray reflections obtained is insufficient for an unambiguous indexing of the diffraction pattern.