Lucas Lau

Major: Physics
Mentors: Antonin Sojka, Professor Mark Sherwin

Development of modulation coil for rapid scan electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy

Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) Spectroscopy is a type of spectroscopy that applies to materials with unpaired electrons. It consists of applying an external magnetic field to split the energies of the up and down electron spin states, using electromagnetic waves to excite the electron, and recording an absorption spectrum by modulating the magnetic field around the expected absorption frequency. However, the current process of sweeping the magnetic field is relatively slow and thus the sample rate that the current apparatus allows for is not fast enough to observe various dynamic processes, such as a protein unfolding or fast chemical reactions. Thus, my project is to implement a modulation coil that can handle 1 MHz AC current to allow for rapid scan technology in EPR. To do this, I am working on designing a current amplifier to increase the amplitude of the magnetic field modulation and also modeling a prototype coil to get resonance at 1MHz. From here, I plan to continue running tests and improving the designs until we achieve the desired parameters of creating a modulation coil that can handle 1 MHz AC current while creating a magnetic field of 100 Gauss inside.