Recent Advances in The Physics of Microemulsions

Microemulsions are dispersions of oil and water made with surfactant molecules. They show microstructures with small oil and water domains separated by surfactant films. The typical size of the domains is about 100 Å. The shape of the domains is largely determined by the surfactant film properties: Spontaneous curvature and flexibility. Droplets structures and random bicontinuous structure can be observed in practice. Experimental results illustrating these concepts are presented.