  This review summarizes recent progress in investigating polymer systems by
using Differential dynamic microscopy (DDM), a rapidly emerging approach that
transforms a commercial microscope by combining real-space information with the
powerful capabilities of conventional light scattering analysis. DDM analysis
of a single microscope movie gives access to the sample dynamics in a wide
range of scattering wave-vectors, enabling contemporary polymer science
experiments that would be difficult or impossible with standard light
scattering techniques. Examples of application include the characterization of
polymer solutions and networks, of polymer based colloidal systems, of
biopolymers, and of cellular motility in polymeric fluids. Further applications
of DDM to a variety of polymer systems are suggested to be just behind the
corner and it is thus likely that DDM will become a tool of choice of the
modern experimental polymer scientists.
