Raising the sensitivity of the electron-paramagnetic-resonance spectrometer using a ferroelectric resonator

Abstract

In order to raise the sensitivity of microwave electron-paramagnetic-resonance (EPR) spectrometers, it is proposed to use a piece of ferroelectric material as an additional resonator. The method has been tested using the RE-1307 microwave EPR spectrometer and a pulsed microwave spectrometer. The possibility of raising the signal-to-noise ratio when using ferroelectric resonators of rectangular-parallelepiped and spherical shape has been considered. For a potassium-tantalate ferroelectric resonator of rectangular-parallelepiped shape, the signal-to-noise ratio has been raised by a factor of 16 at 331 K and by a factor of 10 at 292 K. In the pulse experiment, the presence of the ferroelectric resonator permits a reduction in microwave power, required for sample saturation, by a factor of 50 at 50 K.