Lamellar Sky

Year: 
2019
Ranking: 
Honorable Mention
Artist: 
Emily Wonder (Graduate Student)
Department: 
Materials

Description

This piece shows a colorful image of hydrocarbon chains, which are organized in stacked two-dimensional membranes. These membranes are interspersed with layers of water, called lamella, refracting light differently depending on the angle of incidence. The rotated light escapes crossed polarizers, and appears to the eye as streaks of color over a dark background. This image was taken with an Olympus polarized optical microscope at 4x magnification with polarizers at 90˚. 

Polarized optical microscopy reveals the nanoscale ordering of surfactant and water mixtures. This material is made by melting fatty alcohols and a single-chain cationic surfactant and adding water. It forms a soft, liquid-crystalline material that can be injected into a narrow glass capillary. The surfactant membranes are only a few nanometers thick and are too small to see with this microscope. However, these lamellar stacks are birefringent and can rotate the polarization plane of linearly polarized light. 

CSEPSchuller LabCNSIUCSBMOXI