Steven A. Hickman

Advances in mechanical detection of magnetic resonance

The invention and initial demonstration of magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM) in the early 1990s launched a renaissance of mechanical approaches to detecting magnetic resonance. This article reviews progress made in MRFM in the last decade, including the demonstration of scanned probe detection of magnetic resonance (electron spin resonance, ferromagnetic resonance, and nuclear magnetic resonance) and the mechanical detection of electron spin resonance from a single spin. Force and force-gradient approaches to mechanical detection are reviewed and recent related work using attonewton sensitivity cantilevers to probe minute fluctuating electric fields near surfaces is discussed. Given recent progress, pushing MRFM to single proton sensitivity remains an exciting possibility. We will survey some practical and fundamental issues that must be resolved to meet this challenge.

Scanned-probe detection of electron spin resonance from a nitroxide spin probe

We report an approach that extends the applicability of ultrasensitive force-gradient detection of magnetic resonance to samples with spin-lattice relaxation times (T 1) as short as a single cantilever period. To demonstrate the generality of the approach, which relies on detecting either cantilever frequency or phase, we used it to detect electron spin resonance from a T 1 = 1 ms nitroxide spin probe in a thin film at 4.2 K and 0.6 T. By using a custom-fabricated cantilever with a 4 μm-diameter nickel tip, we achieve a magnetic resonance sensitivity of 400 Bohr magnetons in a 1 Hz bandwidth. A theory is presented that quantitatively predicts both the lineshape and the magnitude of the observed cantilever frequency shift as a function of field and cantilever-sample separation. Good agreement was found between nitroxide T 1 s measured mechanically and inductively, indicating that the cantilever magnet is not an appreciable source of spin-lattice relaxation here. We suggest that the new approach has a number of advantages that make it well suited to push magnetic resonance detection and imaging of nitroxide spin labels in an individual macromolecule to single-spin sensitivity.

Batch-fabrication of cantilevered magnets on attonewton-sensitivity mechanical oscillators for scanned-probe nanoscale magnetic resonance imaging.

We have batch-fabricated cantilevers with ∼100 nm diameter nickel nanorod tips and force sensitivities of a few attonewtons at 4.2 K. The magnetic nanorods were engineered to overhang the leading edge of the cantilever, and consequently the cantilevers experience what we believe is the lowest surface noise ever achieved in a scanned probe experiment. Cantilever magnetometry indicated that the tips were well magnetized, with a ≤ 20 nm dead layer; the composition of the dead layer was studied by electron microscopy and electron energy loss spectroscopy. In what we believe is the first demonstration of scanned probe detection of electron-spin resonance from a batch-fabricated tip, the cantilevers were used to observe electron-spin resonance from nitroxide spin labels in a film via force-gradient-induced shifts in cantilever resonance frequency. The magnetic field dependence of the magnetic resonance signal suggests a nonuniform tip magnetization at an applied field near 0.6 T.

Switching through intermediate states seen in a single nickel nanorod by cantilever magnetometry.

In-plane to out-of-plane magnetization switching in a single nickel nanorod affixed to an attonewton-sensitivity cantilever was studied at cryogenic temperatures. We observe multiple sharp, simultaneous transitions in cantilever frequency, dissipation, and frequency jitter associated with magnetic switching through distinct intermediate states. These findings suggest a new route for detecting magnetic fields at the nanoscale.

Evading surface and detector frequency noise in harmonic oscillator measurements of force gradients

We introduce and demonstrate a method of measuring small force gradients acting on a harmonic oscillator in which the force-gradient signal of interest is used to parametrically up-convert a forced oscillation below resonance into an amplitude signal at the oscillators resonance frequency. The approach, which we demonstrate in a mechanically detected electron spin resonance experiment, allows the force-gradient signal to evade detector frequency noise by converting a slowly modulated frequency signal into an amplitude signal.