Diffusion in Polymer Solutions Studied by Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy

We employed fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) to study the diffusion of molecular and macromolecular tracers in polystyrene solutions over a broad range of concentrations (c) and molecular weights (M(w,m)) of the matrix polymer. Molecular tracer diffusion scales only with the matrix concentration and superimposes on a single, nonpolymer specific, curve. On the contrary, the diffusion of macromolecular tracers in solutions of matrix polymers with M(w,m) sufficiently larger than the tracer molecular weight scales with c/c(p)*, where c(p)* is the tracer overlap concentration. We further demonstrate that FCS can address local and global dynamics simultaneously.