Monograph:

             Arnold Krawietz
              Non-Linear Continuum Mechanics of Microemulsions
              and Amphiphilic Monolayers

              Berlin 2007, 164 pages
                 ISBN: 978 - 3 - 939430 - 04 - 9

                      The booklet can be obtained from the author.                

                 The pdf-version of the manuscript can be viewed  here
 

     Contents:

     Microemulsions are objects of chemical physics with great theoretical and practical importance. They consist of
     curved monomolecular fluid films of amphiphiles in the nano range, which separate oil from water.

     One way of understanding the variety of shapes and phases is the application of the continuum mechanical theory of
     surfaces with bending stiffness. The present monograph gives a comprehensive treatment within the framework of
     full non-linearity. Incorporated are bending and stretching of the film, the monomeric solubility of the amphiphile
     within the bulk fluids, and the influence of the pressures in the cavities.

     While the experimentally confirmed three-phase coexistence  of a microemulsion with an oil and a water excess cannot
      be explained on the basis of a linear bending elasticity approach, the nonlinear setting can predict this phenomenon.
     It is demonstrated that a state of prestress within the amphiphilic film on the microscopic level can give rise to a
     symmetry breaking of the mesoscopic bending energy function and thus allows the existence of an X point in the
     macroscopic phase map.