2018 Volume 18 Issue 11 Pages 545-552
The Rheo-Optics is an experimental method that the optical measurement method or the flow observation is synchronously carried out with the rheological measurement. There are several methods to detect the structure change during the flow. The macroscopic and microscopic flow observation can visualize the phenomenon in the scale of the micrometer to the millimeter order. The small angle light scattering can observe the sub-micrometer to the micrometer size structures. The optical anisotropy, the birefringence and dichroism, can estimate the molecule orientation in the intrinsic effect and the sub-micrometer size structure change in the form effect. These optical methods can detect the specific scale size, but the results of these measurements can be directly compared by using the rheological data as a key data. Therefore, the Rheo-Optics can apply to understand the multiscale phenomena. The basis of the optical measurement techniques and the instruments are summarized. Moreover, the recent topic about the new technology that can detect the two-dimensional optical anisotropy distribution is reviewed.
