Nonequilibrium structure during phase separation

To establish the nature of the early stage structures that occur during phase separation, we studied solutions of a nonionic surfactant micellar solution (C/sub 12/E/sub 6/ in D/sub 2/O). We report the existence of long-lived nonequilibrium structures during shallow quenches along the critical isochore. The power-law scattering profile of these structures is consistent with ramified clusters with a fractal dimension D = 1.6 +- 0.1.