A hexagonal phase of

lyotropic liquid crystal Lyotropic liquid crystals result when Amphiphile, amphiphiles, which are both hydrophobic and hydrophilic, dissolve into a Solution (chemistry), solution that behaves both like a liquid and a solid crystal. This liquid crystalline mesophase inclu ...

is formed by some amphiphilic molecules when they are mixed with water or another polar solvent. In this phase, the

amphiphile In chemistry, an amphiphile (), or amphipath, is a chemical compound possessing both hydrophilic (''water-loving'', polar) and lipophilic (''fat-loving'', nonpolar) properties. Such a compound is called amphiphilic or amphipathic. Amphiphilic ...

molecules are aggregated into cylindrical structures of indefinite length and these cylindrical aggregates are disposed on a hexagonal lattice, giving the phase long-range orientational order. In

normal topology Normal(s) or The Normal(s) may refer to: Film and television * ''Normal'' (2003 film), starring Jessica Lange and Tom Wilkinson * ''Normal'' (2007 film), starring Carrie-Anne Moss, Kevin Zegers, Callum Keith Rennie, and Andrew Airlie * ''Norma ...

hexagonal phases, which are formed by

type I amphiphiles Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * Ty ...

, the hydrocarbon chains are contained within the cylindrical aggregates such that the polar-apolar interface has a positive

mean curvature In mathematics, the mean curvature H of a surface S is an ''extrinsic'' measure of curvature that comes from differential geometry and that locally describes the curvature of an embedded surface in some ambient space such as Euclidean space. The ...

Inverse topology Inverse or invert may refer to: Science and mathematics * Inverse (logic), a type of conditional sentence which is an immediate inference made from another conditional sentence * Additive inverse, the inverse of a number that, when added to the ...

hexagonal phases have water within the cylindrical aggregates and the hydrocarbon chains fill the voids between the hexagonally packed cylinders. Normal topology hexagonal phases are denoted by H_I while inverse topology hexagonal phases are denoted by H_II. When viewed by polarization microscopy, thin films of both normal and inverse topology hexagonal phases exhibit

birefringence Birefringence, also called double refraction, is the optical property of a material having a refractive index that depends on the polarization and propagation direction of light. These optically anisotropic materials are described as birefrin ...

, giving rise to characteristic optical textures. Typically, these textures are smoke-like, fan-like or mosaic in appearance. The phases are highly viscous and small air bubbles trapped within the preparation have highly distorted shapes. Size and shapes of lamellar, micellar and hexagonal phases of

lipid bilayer phase behavior In colloidal chemistry, one property of a lipid bilayer is the relative mobility (fluidity) of the individual lipid molecules and how this mobility changes with temperature. This response is known as the phase behavior of the bilayer. Broadly, at ...

and mixed

lipid polymorphism In biophysics and colloidal chemistry, polymorphism is the ability of lipids to aggregate in a variety of ways, giving rise to structures of different shapes, known as " phases". This can be in the form of spheres of lipid molecules (micelles), ...

in aqueous dispersions can be easily identified and characterized by

negative staining In microscopy, negative staining is an established method, often used in diagnostic microscopy, for contrasting a thin biological specimen, specimen with an optics, optically opacity (optics), opaque fluid. In this technique, the background is stain ...

transmission electron microscopy too.YashRoy R.C. (1990) Lamellar dispersion and phase separation of chloroplast membrane lipids by negative staining electron microscopy. Journal of Biosciences, vol.15(2), pp. 93-98. http://www.ias.ac.in/jarch/jbiosci/15/93-98.pdf File:Hexagonal1a.jpg, Smoky optical texture of type I hexagonal phase File:Hexagonal2a.jpg, Mosaic optical texture of type I hexagonal phase File:Hexagonal3a.jpg, Mosaic/focal conic optical texture of type I hexagonal phase

References

Surfactants Liquid crystals Colloidal chemistry Biophysics {{biophysics-stub

See also

References