Swelling kinetics of a compressed lamellar phase

Jacques Leng (1) , Frédéric Nallet (1) , Didier Roux (1)

1 CRPP - Centre de recherches Paul Pascal

We investigate how multilamellar vesicles prepared in a compressed state under flow return to equilibrium. The kinetics is studied by following the temporal evolution of the viscoelasticity after the shear is stopped. It exhibits a two-step relaxation whose slower stage is strongly affected by temperature. According to a simple model, the temperature-dependent permeability of the lamellar phase is deduced from the measurements. We propose to attribute the permeability to handle-like defects, and its temperature dependence to an increase of the defect density when the lamellar-to-sponge phase transition is approached.

Mots clés: Nonequilibrium and irreversible thermodynamics; Defects in liquid crystals; Heterogeneous liquids: suspensions; dispersions; emulsions; pastes; slurries; foams; block copolymers; etc.; etc

Domaines: Matière Molle [cond-mat.soft]

Jacques Leng, Frédéric Nallet, Didier Roux. Swelling kinetics of a compressed lamellar phase. European Physical Journal E: Soft matter and biological physics, 2001, 4, pp.77. ⟨hal-00097169⟩