Kerr effect in Polyelectrolyte – surfactant mixtures of opposite charges.

H. RITACCO; D. H. KURLAT

Utrecht, The Netherlands

Conferencia; 6th Liquid Matter Conference; 2005

European Physical Society and Utrecht University

For the systems studied here (sulfonated poly-acrylamides/C12TAB) the birefringence is initially negative and changes its sign when surfactant concentration increases. At low surfactant concentrations, a limited collapse of the polymer is produced by the surfactant association onto the polyelectrolyte chains. When more surfactant is added, these first charge-to-charge surfactant-polymer aggregates associate to give big mixed aggregates characterized by a maximum of the Kerr constant. Then, when the surfactant concentration approaches the micellar aggregation concentration, these large aggregates are redissolved to give structures where the polyelectrolytes act as counter-ions of the surfactant micelles.