Journal of Chemical Physics, Vol.117, No.9, 4557-4563, 2002
Turbidity measurements and amplitude scaling of critical solutions of polystyrene in methylcyclohexane
We report turbidity measurements for a series of solutions of polystyrene in methylcyclohexane with varying polymer molecular weights. The obtained correlation length xi and the osmotic compressibility chi shows power law dependence on both the reduced temperature t (=\T-T-c\/T-c) and the molecular weights M-w of the polymers. We find that the relations xi(0)(1-phi(c))(0.85)proportional toM(w)(0.18), and chi(0)(1-phi(c))(-1.20)proportional toM(w)(-0.09) proposed by An, Jiang, Chen, and Shen [Chem. Phys. Lett. 282, 403 (1998)] can be used to describe the present experimental results. Moreover, these relations appear to be better suited than a simple scaling for extracting the M-w-exponents. The exponents so obtained are found to be in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions.