The development of a new nuclear magnetic resonance method using ballistic conductance and the detection of a small amount of molecules

2013 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 23654152
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Biophysics/Chemical physics
• Research Institution: Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (2013); Chuo University (2011-2012)
• Principal Investigator: NEMA Hirofumi 沖縄科学技術大学院大学, 数理理論物理学ユニット, 研究員 (30580055)
• Project Period (FY): 2011 – 2013
• Keywords: グラファイト / 薄膜 / 表面・界面物性

Research Abstract

We try NMR on a monolayer of graphite film. As an early stage, we detected a change in conductance caused by oxygen adsorption onto the film surface. We investigated the temperature dependence of the change in conductance. But the detection sensitivity of our system turned out to be low since the film surface was not clean enough. We modified the micro fabrication process and tried several annealing methods (annealing in the mixture of hydrogen and argon, current annealing etc.) for preparing clean surface but remarkable improvement was not obtained. We continue this research and make measurements with a scanning probe microscope and a scanning near field optical microscope for the information on surface contamination.