ABSTRACT
In a scattering experiment, radiation is incident on a sample and the fraction scattered by the sample is recorded. Solution scattering is concerned with the scattering from samples containing objects in a solvent rather than the diffraction from crystalline material. Scattering is a key technique to study the structure and dynamics of biomolecules and assemblies of biomolecules. Here we are concerned with two classes of scattering experiments: static and dynamic scattering. In a static scattering experiment, the dependence of the (time-averaged) scattered intensity on the direction of observation is determined. This depends on the distribution of scattering centres and thus on the structure and arrangement of the objects. Therefore, we can obtain information on the shape, structure, size and molar mass of the individual objects as well as on their spatial arrangement. In a dynamic scattering experiment, the time dependence of the scattered intensity is analysed. This can provide information on the dynamic properties of the objects, such as their centre of mass motion or, in the case of exible particles, uctuations of their shape. Static and dynamic scattering experiments thus provide complementary information.
