Surfactants are molecules with a dual character, they have hydrophilic and lipophilic compartments. They have the ability to adsorb at surfaces / interfaces and reduce the surface / interfacial tension.

One characteristic of surfactant molecules is their ability to aggregate and form colloidal assemblies (structures) which is an entropy driven process and is concentration and temperature dependant.

Amongst the most common colloidal structure formed are micelles (surfactants assemble in water) and reverse (or inverse) micelles in a hydrocarbon (surfactants assemble in oil for instance). This is simplest self-assembly process a surfactant may undergo.

More sophisticated assembly structures created by surfactants are lamellar, hexagonal, reverse hexagonal and cubic liquid crystalline systems (also called mesophases).

Polymeric surfactants have the ability to self- assemble (aggregate) to form polymeric micelles.

I hope this helps.

thanks Raid G Alany, your explanation was really easy.

Yerp.. self assemblies are self ordering of compunds today in amphilphilic systems such as surfactant systems. It is entropy driven and forming association structures with little/minimum energy required.

Surfactant self-assembly read in our article.

Liquid Polyamorphous Transition and Self-Organization in Aqueous Solutions of Ionic Surfactants

Quantum entanglement in micellar solutions of ionic surfactants.