We report a quasielastic light scattering study of the dynamics of large latex probe particles $(R=225\mathrm{}\mathrm{nm})$ in gelatin solution undergoing gelation. We show that by focusing on the short-time and long-time behavior of the autocorrelation function, it is possible to simply interpret out data in terms of the divergence of the viscosity and emergence of the shear elastic modulus near the gel point. Our crude analysis allows us to grasp the critical behavior of gelation and to obtain the two critical exponents of the transport properties.

• Received 21 November 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.63.061405