Experimental determination of bending rigidity and saddle splay modulus in bicontinuous microemulsions

Abstract

Elastic properties of surfactant membranes can be described in terms of the bending rigidity κ and the saddle splay modulus . Phase diagram measurements and neutron scattering experiments allowed the determination of these parameters. Recent simulations showed that the bending rigidity, which is deduced from the characteristic length scales in the microemulsion, is a mixture of and κ. By combining neutron spin echo (NSE) spectroscopy, small angle neutron scattering (SANS) and phase diagram measurements, we show that also experimentally the different contributions can be separated. For supercritical CO₂ microemulsions and bicontinuous microemulsions with additives, the prefactors of the and κ contributions are determined and compared to those from simulations.