Recent advances in DWS-based micro-rheology

We have reviewed recent developments in diffusing wave spectroscopy (DWS) that have facilitated micro-rheological studies of soft solids and complex liquids. In particular, we have focussed on two novel ensemble-averaging methods, two-cell DWS and charged-coupled device DWS (CCD-DWS), that directly address problems of non-ergodicity and broken time–translation invariance in these materials. The applications of these methods to the study of slow evolutionary dynamics, mechanical aging and transient phenomena are also discussed.