Relaxations in gels: Analogies to α and β relaxations in glasses

Abstract

We present dynamic light scattering data which show that aqueous gelatin gels display a power-law relaxation to a nonergodic background. In the pregel sol this power law is termined by a stretched exponential which restores ergodicity and which has a q dependent characteristic time proportional to the viscosity. The power-law exponent is q dependent and related to a characteristic length in the gel. Except for the q dependences these behaviors are similar to the α and β relaxation behavior in glasses. It is proposed that the different q dependences of the gels and glasses is a result of different characteristic length scales.