Macromolecular investigations by laser light scattering

In a liquid suspension the small particles dance around randomly executing Brownian motion. When laser light is focussed onto such a solution, the total light scattered consists of a superposition of the light scattered from the individual particles in the scattering volume. Interference effects between the light scattered from different particles executing Brownian motion will cause this total intensity to fluctuate rapidly in time (/spl sim//spl mu/ sec time scale) about a well defined average value. Analysis of the time scale of these intensity fluctuations yields the information of interest.