Critical behavior of gelation probed by the dynamics of latex spheres - art. no. 061405

We report a quasielastic light scattering study of the dynamics of large la tex probe particles (R = 225 nm) in gelatin solution undergoing gelation. W e show that by focusing on the short-time and long-time behavior of the aut ocorrelation function, it is possible to simply interpret out data in terms of the divergence of the viscosity and emergence of the shear elastic modu lus near the gel point. Our crude analysis allows us to grasp the critical behavior of gelation and to obtain the two critical exponents of the transp ort properties.