Electrons and most nuclei have a property known as spin which is like a tiny compass needle. When placed in a magnetic field, these spins can line up with the field or point in the opposite direction. In a spin resonance experiment, radiation is applied with the correct energy to flip spins from one level to another. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an application of these techniques which is sensitive to the nuclear spin of protons that are part of the water molecules in our bodies. At the LCN we use spin resonance to explore quantum effects in semiconductor crystals and molecular thin films, as well as using electrical transport to detect spin resonance. With pulsed spin resonance we have found that certain spins store quantum information for long enough to be useful for quantum computing.
Research Poster PDFs
Electron Spin Resonance, Applications in Organic Electronics
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SPIN RESONANCE
Figure: Spin echo intensity of TEMPOL molecules at high magnetic fields measured with pulsed electron spin resonance. Changing the delay between the applied pulses reveals the timescale on which quantum information is stored. [courtesy Gavin Morley]