KINETICS OF ALIGNMENT AND DECAY IN A HIGHLY ENTANGLED TRANSIENT THREAD-LIKE MICELLAR NETWORK STUDIED BY SMALL-ANGLE NEUTRON-SCATTERING

We report on a study of the kinetics of alignment and decay of alignme nt, using small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), of a complex fluid un der Couette shear containing a highly entangled network of threadlike micelles. The time scales of alignment revealed are dominated by the c ollective properties of the network rather than the individual micella r segments. This results in rates orders of magnitude slower than any previously observed in similar systems as well as in the first observa tion of an alignment proceeding in two stages.