Static and dynamic light scattering in turbid suspensions

Abstract

The application of static and dynamic light scattering to many colloidal systems of practical interest has often been considered too complicated due to strong multiple scattering. There are two new approaches to overcome this problem. One of them aims at suppressing contributions from multiple scattering using novel cross-correlation schemes. While this relies on the suppression of multiple scattering, the so-called diffusing wave spectroscopy (DWS) works in the limit of very strong multiple scattering. DWS can be used for the characterization of dynamic and static properties of colloidal systems on a large range of time and length scales ranging from a few Ångstroms to hundreds of nanometers. We demonstrate that a wealth of information can be obtained from these methods on the structure, dynamics, interaction effects, stability, aggregation, and sol-gel transition in colloidal dispersions.