2007/02/27 by H. J. Mamin, Martino Poggio, M. Poggio +3 · 2 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced MEMS and NEMS Technologies #Force Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #cond-mat.other
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/nnano.2007.105
published as Nature Nanotech. 2, 301 (2007) · 24 pages, 5 figures
arxiv created 2007/02/27 · openalex publication_date 2007/04/22 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Magnetic resonance imaging, based on the manipulation and detection of nuclear spins, is a powerful imaging technique that typically operates on the scale of millimeters to microns. Using magnetic resonance force microscopy, we have demonstrated that magnetic resonance imaging of nuclear spins can be extended to a spatial resolution better than 100 nm. The two-dimensional imaging of 19F nuclei was done on a patterned CaF2 test object, and was enabled by a detection sensitivity of roughly 1200 nuclear spins. To achieve this sensitivity, we developed high-moment magnetic tips that produced field gradients up to 1.4x106 T/m, and implemented a measurement protocol based on force-gradient detection of naturally occurring spin fluctuations. The resulting detection volume of less than 650 zl represents 60,000x smaller volume than previous NMR microscopy and demonstrates the feasibility of pushing magnetic resonance imaging into the nanoscale regime.