Résumé:

Surfactant-containing systems are characterized by the self-assembly of aggregated units that endow the bulk level with emergent physical properties. The aggregates themselves take on different shapes from lamellae to spheres. During the last decade the soft matter complexity in this field has been contributed by the polymeric component. I will focus on the addition of amphiphilic copolymers in structured surfactant phases on simple shapes, i.e., flat bilayers, cylinders and spheres. In all cases, the hydrophobic block of the copolymer adsorbs on the surfactant layer, whereas the hydrophilic tails remain in the aqueous solvent and decorate the film. The guest component modifies both the elastic properties of the film and the interactions between the surfactant mesoscopic objects. Small angle neutron scattering is the main experimental technique we used to reveal and analyse some of these polymer-induced modifications.