Scattering properties of multicomponent polymer solutions: Polyelectrolytes, homopolymer mixtures and diblock copolymer

This article reviews the understanding of static and dynamic scattering properties of multicomponent polymer systems in solution achieved during the past decade. We shall describe particularly ternary polymer systems which include polyelectrolyte solutions (polyion/counter-ions/water), mixture of homopolymers (A and B)/solvent and the case of diblock copolymer (A-B, linear or cyclic) solutions. The purpose of this paper is not an extensive survey of theoretical and experimental results obtained on the scattering behavior of these systems but rather an updating of recent results. For polyelectrolyte systems we shall focus, by means of scattering techniques, on the conformation of the polyelectrolyte chain and on the structure of the system induced by the dominant electrostatic interactions in solution involving polyions, counter-ions and solvent. As for the mixture of homopolymers in solution and diblock copolymer/solvent systems, we shall mainly discuss their dynamic behavior and show that using linear response theory and the Random Phase Approximation (RPA), two relaxation modes describe the autocorrelation functions as revealed using dynamic light scattering (DLS) or/and Neutron Spin Echo (NSE) techniques: the first mode characterizes the concentration fluctuations and the second one the composition fluctuations. We shall discuss the scattering properties of these systems on the basis of recent developments with emphasis on possible coiling of the polyelectrolyte chain at low charge density and also how important parameters such as the mobility of the chain (diffusion process) and the interaction parameter (compatibility), which control the dynamics and the thermodynamics in homopolymer mixtures and diblock copolymer systems, could be deduced from scattering experiments.