Broad Bandwidth Optical and Mechanical Rheometry of Wormlike Micelle Solutions

Abstract

We characterize the linear viscoelastic shear properties of an aqueous wormlike micellar solution using diffusing wave spectroscopy (DWS) based tracer microrheology as well as various mechanical techniques such as rotational rheometry, oscillatory squeeze flow, and torsional resonance oscillation covering the frequency range from 10(-1) to 10(6) rad/s. Since DWS as well as mechanical oscillatory squeeze flow and torsional resonance oscillation cover a sufficiently high frequency range, the persistence length of wormlike micelles could be determined directly from rheological measurements for the first time.