Charge-frustrated model of bicontinuous phases

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Abstract
A nonlinear field theoretic model for surfactant self-assembly is described and applied to bicontinuous phases. The anharmomic model treats bonding constraints and the resulting frustration of phase separation in terms of an electrostatic analogy. The model does not assume self-assembly, and it accounts for all long-wavelength density fluctuations. A renormalized harmonic approximation is used to predict scattering curves. With physically reasonable values for the parameters that characterize the model, the predictions of the theory compare favorably with experiment and are consistent with Porod’s law in the small angle region.