LIGHT SCATTERING FROM SOLUTIONS OF MACROMOLECULES.

This paper surveys the aspects of light scattering that are most useful in studying thermodynamic and conformational properties of macromolecules in solution. Three essential properties of light scattering make the phenomenon of special interest to the polymer scientist: the intensity of scattering from solutions provides an absolute measure of mol. wt; intramolecular interference manifested in angular dependence of scattered intensity in dilute solutions yields information about macromolecular dimensions; and concentration dependence of scattering reveals intermolecular optical interference and can be interpreted in terms of thermodynamic interactions. In this review the theoretical derivation considerations are followed by detailed description of light scattering methods, and light scattering instrumentation.