Quantum Institute: Visitor Schedule

The Quantum Lunch is regularly held on Thursdays in the Theoretical Division Conference Room, TA-3, Building 123, Room 121.
For more information, contact Diego Dalvit.
To add your name to the Quantum Lunch email list, contact Ellie Vigil

Thursday, May 26, 2011
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Speaker: Micah Ledbetter (UC Berkeley)

Technical Host: Igor Savukov

TOPIC: Adventures in atomic magnetometry and zero-field NMR

Abstract
I will discuss atomic magnetometers and our recent discovery at U.C. Berkeley of the remarkable antirelaxation properties of alkene-based paraffin coatings, enabling alkali Zeeman coherences with lifetimes in excess of one minute. This corresponds to roughly one million polarization preserving alkali-wall collisions.

I will also discuss an emerging application of atomic magnetometers: detection of zero-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). I will show that zero-field NMR spectra can contain substantial information about molecular structure and can be used as a tool for chemical fingerprinting.

I will also discuss our recent work using parahydrogen induced polarization to produce intense signal enhancement of zero-field NMR signals, enabling NMR without any magnets at all.