Strain Effect on Quasistatic Fluctuations in a Polymer Gel

Abstract

We study the scattering properties of a polymer gel uniaxially deformed by anisotropic swelling. Both the light- and neutron-scattering intensities appear to be greatly enhanced along the direction of maximum dilation. Using a scanning light-scattering device, we show that this effect is governed by the "quasistatic" fluctuations, in space, of the polymer concentration, and not by the "thermal" fluctuations.