Dynamics of freely suspended lyotropic films. I. An inelastic light scattering study of thermal surface fluctuations

We have studied the spectrum and intensity of light scattered by thermal surface displacement fluctuations on freely suspended lyotropic films. Films consisted of a liquid core and surface soap layers and were drawn from solution containing water, glycerol, NaCl, and the ionic surfactant hexadecyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (HTAB). Two modes were observed: a propagating undulation mode in which the film surfaces move together and a damped peristaltic mode having oppositely moving surface soap layers. Dispersion relations for these modes, obtained from the dependence of the scattered light intensity correlation function on film thickness h and wave vector k, confirm the macroscopic hydrodynamic description of film motion. In particular, the overdamped peristaltic mode is shown to involve Poiseuille flow of the fluid core with the flow velocity zero within 2 Å of the surfactant–solution interface, indicating no significant slip or rigid interfacial water layer. No evidence of dispersion in the effective viscosity of the fluid core h(k,w) over the range 0