text: Polymer scattering experiments are one of the main scientific methods used in chemistry, physics and other sciences to study the characteristics of polymeric systems: solutions, gels, compounds and more. As in most scattering experiments, it involves subjecting a polymeric sample to incident particles (with defined wavelengths), and studying the characteristics of the scattered particles: angular distribution, intensity polarization and so on. This method is quite simple and straightforward, and does not require special manipulations of the samples which may alter their properties, and hence compromise exact results.
  As opposed to crystallographic scattering experiments, where the scatterer or "target" has very distinct order, which leads to well defined patterns (presenting Bragg peaks for example), the stochastic nature of polymer configurations and deformations (especially in a solution), gives rise to quite different results.