Critical-Like Behavior Observed for a Five-Component Microemulsion

The light-scattering techniques of intensity angular dissymmetry and photon correlation spectroscopy are used to determine the static correlation length, osmotic compressibility, and diffusivity of an oil-in-water microemulsion. The observed temperature dependence of these quantities near a phase separation point qualitatively resembles the critical behavior found for simple fluids and binary mixtures, but with substantially larger values of the critical exponents $\tilde{\nu }$ and $\tilde{\gamma }$.