Advanced Light Scattering Characterization and Physics for Functional Polyelectrolyte Gels

Yu-Sen Jie; Di Jia

doi:10.1007/s10118-026-3576-y

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Advanced Light Scattering Characterization and Physics for Functional Polyelectrolyte Gels

Special Topic: Functional Gels | Updated：2026-05-30

- Advanced Light Scattering Characterization and Physics for Functional Polyelectrolyte Gels
- Advanced Light Scattering Characterization and Physics for Functional Polyelectrolyte Gels
- Chinese Journal of Polymer Science 2026年44卷第6期页码：1578-1591
- Affiliations：
  
  a.Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China
  b.University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
- Author bio：
  
  jiadi11@iccas.ac.cn
- Funds：
  
  This work was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. W2511011 and 22273114), the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. XDB0770101), and International Partnership Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (No. 027GJHZ2022061FN).;Di Jia received her B.S. degree from Beijing University of Chemical Technology in 2011, and her Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences with Professor Charles C. Han in 2016. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with Professor Murugappan Muthukumar from 2016 to 2020. From May to August 2019, she was also a visiting scholar at the University of Freiburg in Germany with Professor Günter Reiter. She has been a professor at the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2021. Currently, she leads a research group dedicated to the fundamental physics of charged soft matter including charged hydrogels, polyzwitterions, complex coacervates and biomolecular condensates etc. by mainly using light/X-ray/neutron scattering techniques, combined with theory. She has also utilized the discoveries in fundamental polymer physics to better design and understand life science, complex fluids, and soft living matter.The authors declare no interest conflict.
- DOI：10.1007/s10118-026-3576-y
  中图分类号：
- 收稿：2025-12-22，
  
  录用：2026-01-14，
  
  网络首发：2026-05-12，
  
  纸质出版：2026-06-05
- Accepted：
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Jie, Y. S.; Jia, D. Advanced light scattering characterization and physics for functional polyelectrolyte gels. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. 2026, 44, 1578–1591

Yu-Sen Jie, Di Jia. Advanced Light Scattering Characterization and Physics for Functional Polyelectrolyte Gels[J]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2026, 44(6): 1578-1591.
Jie, Y. S.; Jia, D. Advanced light scattering characterization and physics for functional polyelectrolyte gels. Chinese J. Polym. Sci. 2026, 44, 1578–1591 DOI： 10.1007/s10118-026-3576-y.

Yu-Sen Jie, Di Jia. Advanced Light Scattering Characterization and Physics for Functional Polyelectrolyte Gels[J]. Chinese Journal of Polymer Science, 2026, 44(6): 1578-1591. DOI： 10.1007/s10118-026-3576-y.

摘要

Light scattering is a powerful technique for characterizing the elasticity

microstructures and dynamics of various functional hydrogels. The average bond binding energy and lifetime of the physical crosslinks in gel networks can also be extracted from dynamic light scattering characterization results.

Abstract

Functional gels exhibit unique properties that can be tuned by regulating their physical interactions and microstructures. However

quantifying the strength and fraction of these physical interactions and how they result in large-scale collective dynamical properties remains a significant challenge. From this perspective

we briefly review the theories and characterization method of light scattering on polyelectrolyte gels

with an emphasis on summarizing our efforts. In particular

we introduce our most recent work on an entirely new universality class of hierarchical gel dynamics for various types of physical gels

which is complementary to the light scattering studies on chemically crosslinked gels in the past five decades. By utilizing the hierarchical gel dynamics

we are able to extract the average bond binding energy of various physical bonds and the physical crosslinking density in the gels. Finally

we evaluated the advantages and limitations of the light scattering method and discussed the future perspectives in this field. It is anticipated that this perspective will facilitate the broad application of light scattering technique in the field of functional gels.

关键词

Keywords

references

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