CYLINDRICAL STRUCTURE AND FLEXIBILITY OF POLYMER-LIKE LECITHIN REVERSE MICELLES

We report results of a light-scattering (LS) and small-angle neutron-scattering (SANS) investigation of a reverse micellar system in which very large and flexible polymerlike aggregates can be found. We will show that it is possible to find conditions under which we can determine the overall dimension, the flexibility, and the local cylindrical structure of these reverse micelles using LS and SANS. This permits us to directly confirm existing structural models and verify the postulated analogy between the structural properties of polymer chains and lecithin reverse micelles.