Phase transformation of tetraethyleneglycol dodecyl ether solution studied by light scattering spectra: Micelle aggregation, vesicle and lamellar phase

The phase transformation of tetraethyleneglycol dodecyl ether (C12E4) solution was investigated by Rayleigh light scattering (RLS) technique. It was shown that the scattering spectra were very sensitive to the molecular motions of C12E4. For dilute solutions, phase transformation from micelles to vesicles was observed in a temperature jump process, and the vesicle formation process involves four stages: (I) micelle aggregation stage, (II) scission stage, (III) fusion stage and (IV) phase transition stage. The corresponding morphologies were confirmed by Atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements and the vesicle radii were calculated from the form factors. For concentrated systems, the phase transformation temperatures were determined using the intensity ratio of two scattering peaks due to the appearance of peak shifts in scattering spectra. In this case, two processes can be found during the phase transformation, i.e., micelle aggregation and phase transformation from micelle aggregation to lamellar phase.