ABSTRACT
I. INTRODUCTION Spherical micelles in water are dynamic species that break up and reform. On a microsecond time scale, single surfactant molecules retreat from and travel toward micelles, and within milliseconds the whole micelle, typically made of less than 100 amphiphilic molecules, disintegrates [1,2]. The reason for the short lifetime of micelles lies in the large distance and repulsive interaction between hydrated headgroups and the relatively high critical concentration of monomers that is needed to form micelles [critical micelle concentration (cmc) 102 M]. Detergent micelles in water can only be observed by cryo-transmission electron microscopy (TEM) [3,4] (Fig. 1) because they disintegrate immediately on solid surfaces. Their diameter corresponds directly to the length of two detergent molecules, typically 4-5 nm. Micelles dissolve compounds that are not soluble in the bulk solvent. Detergent micelles usually take up just one water-insoluble dye [5] molecule or a hydrogen-bonded dimer [6].
