CW NMR Continuous Wave Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Brandon Bauerly
Department of Physics, Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, IL 60045
(Date: Mon May 1, 2014)

Resonant properties of Hydrogen and Flourine nuclei. Multiple samples in an electromagnet to measure
the gyromagnetic ratio. We related the frequency and the magnetic field present in the nuclei to
experimentally obtain the slope, which is closely related to the gyromagnetic ratio. For all samples used,
our discrepancy parameters were much greater than 1.8, signifying disagreement with the accepted
value used. However, the ratio of the gyromagnetic ratios compared to the accepted value had a
discrepancy parameter of 0.3, signifying agreement. We attribute this disagreement to field
inhomogeneity and discuss the possibility of future experiments to minimize this large systematic error.

I. Introduction
NMR an acronym for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance, is a quantum mechanical
phenomenon exploited by chemists and physicists to observe properties of atomic nuclei.
Inherent in NMR is the property known as resonance. This occurs when the spin of protons
interact with an external magnetic field in an unusual manner. The technique for inducing
this effect was developed by both Felix Bloch and Edward Purcell in 1951. Since its
Inception, NMR has been employed in a variety of applications in both chemistry and
physics, but also in unrelated fields such as medicine and process optimization.
4

II. Theory
Consider a proton in an external magnetic field. We know from quantum mechanics that
the proton has a spin angular momentum and a magnetic dipole moment. These quantities
interact in the following way:

(1)
Where

is the magnetic dipole moment,

is the spin,
and is the gyromagnetic ratio
2
. The spin vector is locked into an
orientation as drawn to the right because the protons magnetic
dipole moment interacts with the external magnetic field.
Though this is only a classical model, it can be used to illustrate
this concept. We define the rate at which the proton processes Fig 1. Larmor Precession
about the external magnetic field to be the Larmor frequency, denoted f. It we call the constant
external magnetic field B
0
, then the Larmor frequency is related to the external magnetic field by the
equation

(2)
III. Apparatus

Fig. 2. Picture of physical apparatus
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Equipment:
1. Tektronix TDS 2002B Oscilloscope
2. Fluke 175 DMM
3. Electromagnet
4. Gaussmeter Probe
5. Probe
6. Tektronix CMC250 Frequency Counter
7. Lake Shore Gaussmeter
8. Fluke 175 DMM
9. Power Supply # 3
10. HP - 6286A DC Power Supply

Fig 3. A block diagram of the apparatus courtesy of Kale Wyndgarden
3









Fig 4. Circuit diagram of marginal oscillator



IV. Procedure
We began the experiment by choosing a range of frequencies of which to observe
resonance on. We chose the range between 8.3-9.2 MHz. We made sure to zero the
gaussmeter by using the zero gauss chamber before inserting it into the magnet at a location
close to the RF coil. We then inserted our first sample, glycerol, into the RF coil. We then
turned the sweeping frequency adjustment dial until we got our first frequency value within
this range. We knew what frequency we were at by looking at the display on the frequency
counter. We then looked at the screen on the oscilloscope and turned the B-field adjustment
knob until the peaks were equally spaced. An example oscilloscope trace is shown below.

Fig 5. Water & Copper Sulfate at f =8370 Khz

We recorded this B-field value in Excel and repeated this process 7 times for different
frequencies. We also repeated this process for a of water + copper sulfate sample. The
purpose of the copper sulfate is solely to lower the energy of the more energetic hydrogen
atoms. For our last sample we used a surfactant containing both hydrogen and fluorine
molecules. We obtained this data for all our samples.







Table 1. Data for all 3 samples.

We then plotted frequency vs. magnetic field for each of these and obtained the graphs
shown below. We linear fit them and recorded the slopes as well. It should be noted that we
fixed the y-intercept at 0 in accordance with theoretical predictions.




















Fig. 6. Glycerol Fig. 7. Water + Copper Sulfate














Fig. 8. Surfactant Hydrogen Fig. 9. Surfactant - Flourine






V. Analysis

The next step is to compare our values to accepted values.
2
We performed a standard
discrepancy analysis on

for each trial.

Table 2. Discrepancy analysis for all samples

It is immediately apparent that our values for the gyromagnetic ratio absolutely do NOT
agree with the accepted values. We attribute this to the inhomogeneity of the magnetic field.
It is important to note that the ratio of the gyromagnetic ratios agrees with the accepted
value given in the same source. We believe this supports our hypothesis of field
inhomogeneity.






Table 3. Comparison of the ratio of gyromagnetic ratios

VI. Conclusion
In this lab we set out to measure the gyromagnetic ratios for both hydrogen and
fluorine molecules using continuous wave NMR techniques. We did obtain values of the
gyromagnetic ratio of hydrogen: 42.79 +/- 0.02, 42.82 +/- 0.03, and 42.80 +/- 0.03. We also
obtained a value for the gyromagnetic ratio of fluorine to be 40.24 +/- 0.02. The ratio of the
gyromagnetic ratios to an accepted value did in fact agree with a discrepancy parameter of 0.3.
This points to a large systematic error.
The values we obtained did not match the accepted values we used. However, we
believe we have isolated the cause of the problem, the field inhomogeneity, and further
experiments could be constructed to account for this problem.





References

[1] A. C. Melissinos and J. Napolitano, Experiments in Modern Physics 2 ed. (Academic Press,
2005) Ch 7.
[2] G. R. Davies, Am J. Phys. 58, 1212 (1990)
[3] Kale Wyndgarden CW Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Final Presentation, Slide 3,
Diagram
[4]C. P. Slichter, Principles of Magnetic Resonance (Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg New
York 1980), Ch. 2