Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
My NMR experiments are mainly performed in the University of Nottingham. The instruments that I use for my NMR experiments in Nottingham are the field-cycling NMR spectrometer and the dilution refrigerator with built-in NMR spectrometer. The field-cycling NMR spectrometer has field-cycling speed of 10 Tesla/s and is capable of achieving a field of up to 2.5 Tesla as well as cooling the sample down to 4.2K. The dilution refrigerator with built-in NMR spectrometer is capable of achieving a temperature of 2 mK and a variable field of up to 15.5 Tesla.
NMR is a useful tool to information regarding the properties and dynamics of dihydrogen endofullerenes. Because only ortho-H2 has a non-zero total nuclear spin, hence, only ortho-H2 can be detected by NMR. The line shape of the NMR spectrum tells us of the internal interactions between the ortho-H2, such as the chemical shift and crystal field splitting. Measuring the spin-lattice relaxation as a function of field allows us to obtain the spectral density, which we can then abstract the correlation time constant from it. This correlation time constant is able to give us information regarding the rotation of the ortho-H2.
Dilution Refrigerator with built-in NMR spectrometer:
