A light scattering experiment has been carried out to investigate the effect of the spatial inhomogeneity of a weakly charged gel as a function of cross-link density. It has been observed that an anomalous cross-link density dependence of the scattering light intensity occurs when the temperature is varied. While in the good solvent (soluble) regime the gel becomes more inhomogeneous with increasing cross-link density, in the poor solvent (insoluble) regime the inhomogeneity decreases with the degree of cross linking. The latter effect is the signature of microphase separation in charged gels in poor solvent, recently analyzed by Rabin and Panyukov.

• Received 7 March 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.56.R51