Development of variable temperature NMR force microscopy : proton spin relaxation measurements in ammonium sulfate

Nuclear magnetic resonance force microscopy (NMRFM) of a micron size sample of ammonium sulfate was performed by measuring the cantilever deflection produced by coupling the magnetic force to a mechanical cantilever at its resonance frequency. Spin-lattice and spin-spin relaxation measurements were obtained with our newly developed NMRFM probe. A system with more advanced positioning, acquisition and analysis has been fabricated. A new device in which a semi-automatic system performs nanoposition control, spin manipulation, dynamical measurements, and data analysis has been demonstrated to be successful. The new system has proven to be an improvement with respect to other versions of NMRFM probes, thanks to its versatility for pulse sequence designs, faster data acquisition, and automatic analysis of the information.

This thesis presents an explanation of the theoretical details of nuclear magnetic resonance force microscopy, and experiments are described in which dynamical measurements of proton spin interactions are obtained. Finally, relaxation time e ffects of the observed force signal are considered in detail. A novel spin manipulation technique which is being implemented for future measurements is described in detail, and magnet con figurations for larger magnetic field gradients and consequently larger signal-to-noise ratio, are also described.