Critical behavior of a microemulsion studied by small-angle neutron scattering

The critical behavior of a three-component water-in-oil microemulsion was studied by small-angle neutron scattering. Intensity spectra were analyzed by the treatment of critical scattering as arising from concentration fluctuations of polydisperse spheres. We propose a model capable of fitting the data over five decades of intensity variation. The critical exponents were determined to be ν=0.72±0.04 and γ=1.61±0.09. The average droplet size and width of the size distribution exhibited little temperature dependence.