Two world-class nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometers are used to study a range of magnetic materials. Particular attention is focused upon (a) a new emerging class of strong expanded lattice ferromagnets and (b) the increasingly technologically important and scientifically challenging ultra-thin magnetic films and superlattices. A further NMR spectrometer, shared with the School of Chemistry, is also used for the investigation of high temperature superconductors.
Principal contacts: Peter Riedi, David Tunstall

High Magnetic Field Electron Spin Resonance is an enabling technique in the study of paramagnetic systems (transition metal ions, free radicals, defects) in materials science and structural biology offering higher resolution, higher sensitivity and higher energy quanta. At St.Andrews we have used the expertise within the millimetre wave and magnetic resonance groups to construct a highly sensitive quasi-optical spectrometer that works from 80 to 300GHz in magnetic fields up to 12T at cryogenic temperatures. This spectrometer has state of the art sensitivity and is now a UK EPSRC facility and part of a European network on High Field ESR Instrumentation and research. The spectrometer has also been commercialised and several versions are now being used at leading laboratories around the world.
Principal Contacts: Graham Smith, Peter Riedi

High Field Ferromagnetic Resonance is the study of ferromagnetic resonance in very high magnetic fields and uses the same type of spectrometer as for high field ESR measurements. Multi-frequency measurements in high fields allow anisotropy fields and damping terms to be calculated which are important parameters in the characterisation of magnetic storage media. The extra sensitivity available with the high field spectrometer has allowed very thin films to be characterised under conditions of full saturation and is very much an enabling technique.
Principal Contacts: Peter Riedi , Graham Smith,

Magnetic Resonance Force Microscopy (MRFM) is a new technique that combines the spatial resolution of scanning probe microscopy with the chemical specifity associated with electron spin resonance. The magnetic resonance group is currently constructing a probe that works in high magnetic fields, low temperatures and in vacuum and should have a spatial resolution of around 10nm. Initial experiments have been very promising and point to the to the possibility of single spin sensitivity. If this can be achieved there are major applications in surface chemistry, ferromagnetic systems, semiconductor characterisation and structural biology.
Principal Contacts: Graham Smith, Peter Riedi, Jim Lesurf, Steve Lee

 Metal insulator transitions are investigated using electron spin resonance techniques. Particular attention is focused on the transition from a metal of high conductivity to an insulator of poor conductivity in doped semiconductor samples. For example, if silicon is doped with phosphorus at a sufficiently high density it converts the semiconductor into a metal. Arsenic doping has the same effect on germanium, but at an order of magnitude lower critical density. The similarities and differences in metal-insulator systems are explored at millikelvin temperatures.
Principal contact: David Tunstall

 The structures of polymer electrolytes are being studied in collaboration with Professor Peter Bruce in the School of Chemistry. As part of a general research programme aimed at all-solid-state batteries we are using NMR and X-ray diffraction techniques to characterise the crystalline and amorphous structures that exist in polymer electrolytes.
Principal contact: David Tunstall

Cooling the NMR magnet