Light scattering study of the liquid-glass transition in trimethylheptane: depolarized near backscattering study

We studied the dynamics of the liquid-glass transition in the molecular glass-former, trimethylheptane (TMH), using depolarized near backscattering spectroscopy (DNBS). We found that in TMH density fluctuations are more important than orientational fluctuations in the depolarized scattered intensity. We carried out a preliminary analysis of the dynamic susceptibility, chi "(omega) in the temperature range 180 to 260 K based on the idealized mode coupling theory (MCT). We estimated the exponent parameter, lambda similar or equal to 0.78, and the crossover temperature T-c similar to 125 R. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.