Rheo NMR and shear banding

The phenomenon of shear banding in complex fluids has been investigated using NMR velocimetry and NMR spectroscopy, mostly in wormlike micelle systems, but more recently in colloidal systems and multilayer vesicles. A particular advantage of NMR is the ability to simultaneously investigate structural ordering and to compare such ordering with local strain rates. In this paper, we describe the basics of Rheo-NMR and summarise its recent application to the study of shear banding.