Laser light scattering of polymer solutions

Laser light scattering (LLS), small-angle x-ray scattering, and small-angle neutron scattering are complementary techniques. Together they become unmatched among the physical methods that can be used to investigate the structure and dynamics of polymeric materials over a large range of length and time scales. The unique features of LLS are its ability to determine not only molecular weight, size, and internal motions of polymers in solution or of colloids in suspension, but also the size distribution. The applications of LLS to polymer physics and colloid science have been extensive and noteworthy, especially in particle-size analysis. Two unique examples of (1) Teflon solution characterization and (2) coil-to-globule transition are presented. (C) 1997 Optical Society of America.