Anomalous phase separation dynamics in the presence of surfactants

Abstract

We study the phase separation of water and oil in a water-oil-surfactant microemulsion, from a totally disordered phase in both two and three dimensions using extensive Monte Carlo simulations of a spin model of microemulsions. The evolution of the characteristic length scale and the structure factor are measured and compared with recent experiments and theoretical work. At relatively high surfactant concentrations and off-critical quenches, we obtain results in agreement with earlier theoretical approaches. For critical quenches at very low surfactant concentrations, we observe the surprising result that it is easier to get to the scaling regime than in the pure binary case