Anisotropy of the proton T1 and the low-field relaxation in NH4 ClO4 below 20K

Ammonium tunnel levels and spin-rotational wavefunctions in (NH4)2S2O8

Proton spin-lattice relaxation in a single crystal of (NH4)2S2O8 was studied as a function of resonance frequency at various constant temperatures between 4.2 and 30 K. Two T1 minima were found, one at 8.6 MHz and the other at 4.3 MHz. They are related to the splitting between the lowest T level and the A level, equal to 8.6 MHz nearly independently of temperature below 25 K. Together with the large tunnel splitting of 269 MHz, determined earlier by Clough et al. (Chem. Phys. 152, 343 (1991)) our results define the spin-rotational wavefunction of the lowest T level very accurately, although those of the two higher T levels remain largely undetermined.

Proton double quantum coherence and cross-relaxation in (NH4)2SnBr6

A proton double quantum coherence signal can be observed exclusively from the T species NH4 groups (with the total spin I = 1) in ammonium compounds at low temperatures by the three-pulse sequence 90x degrees - tpr - 90x degrees - tev - 90x degrees - ta, where tpr and ta are of the magnitude of the inverse line width and tev very short. The usefulness of this pulse sequence, preceded by the additional pulse sequence 90x degrees - t1 -90(-x) degrees - t2 for creating an unbalance between the A and T species magnetizations, was demonstrated by applying it to cross-relaxation studies in (NH4)2SnBr6.

SQUID detected NMR and NQR. Superconducting Quantum Interference Device

The dc Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID) is a sensitive detector of magnetic flux, with a typical flux noise of the order 1 muphi0 Hz(-1/2) at liquid helium temperatures. Here phi0 = h/2e is the flux quantum. In our NMR or NQR spectrometer, a niobium wire coil wrapped around the sample is coupled to a thin film superconducting coil deposited on the SQUID to form a flux transformer. With this untuned input circuit the SQUID measures the flux, rather than the rate of change of flux, and thus retains its high sensitivity down to arbitrarily low frequencies. This feature is exploited in a cw spectrometer that monitors the change in the static magnetization of a sample induced by radio frequency irradiation. Examples of this technique are the detection of NQR in 27Al in sapphire and 11B in boron nitride, and a level crossing technique to enhance the signal of 14N in peptides. Research is now focused on a SQUID-based spectrometer for pulsed NQR and NMR, which has a bandwidth of 0-5 MHz. This spectrometer is used with spin-echo techniques to measure the NQR longitudinal and transverse relaxation times of 14N in NH4ClO4, 63+/-6 ms and 22+/-2 ms, respectively. With the aid of two-frequency pulses to excite the 359 kHz and 714 kHz resonances in ruby simultaneously, it is possible to obtain a two-dimensional NQR spectrum. As a third example, the pulsed spectrometer is used to study NMR spectrum of 129Xe after polariza-tion with optically pumped Rb. The NMR line can be detected at frequencies as low as 200 Hz. At fields below about 2 mT the longitudinal relaxation time saturates at about 2000 s. Two recent experiments in other laboratories have extended these pulsed NMR techniques to higher temperatures and smaller samples. In the first, images were obtained of mineral oil floating on water at room temperature. In the second, a SQUID configured as a thin film gradiometer was used to detect NMR in a 50 microm particle of 195Pt at 6 mT and 4.2 K.