Robby L. Alvarez

HTS sensors for NQR spectroscopy

Using a high temperature superconductor (HTS) sensor, we have detected a /sup 14/N nuclear quadrupole resonance (NQR) signal from a room temperature sodium nitrite (NaNO/sub 2/) sample. This demonstrates the feasibility of using such sensors for the NQR detection of contraband, e.g. explosives. The sensor is composed of two high Q-value, self-resonant HTS devices strongly coupled to each other that detect the induced magnetization of the target compound. We briefly describe our techniques for making, adjusting the resonant frequency and spoiling the Q-value of the HTS sensors.