Real-time gelation on intrinsic length and time scales

Following the structure and dynamics in-situ during phase transitions and state changes represents a main subject of soft matter physics, especially during the process of gelation. However, access to dynamics on the relevant next-neighbour length scale is limited by the spatial and temporal resolution of experimental techniques. The evolution of latest detector generations offering event-driven readout such as the TEMPUS detector enables sub-µs time resolution of X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy experiments. This matches the intrinsic time scales of the dynamics of such systems. Here, we propose to make use of such an XPCS scheme to reveal the dynamics during the onset of colloidal gelation, with special attention on the role of hydrodynamics, de Gennes narrowing and dynamical heterogene