Microwave resonant cavity and electron paramagnetic resonance probe using same
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical field of electron paramagnetic resonance, in particular to a microwave resonant cavity with a low-frequency modulation magnetic field coupling function and an electron paramagnetic resonance probe using the microwave resonant cavity.
Background
Electron paramagnetic resonance (electron paramagnetic resonance, EPR) is a magnetic resonance technique that is initiated by the magnetic moment of unpaired electrons and can be used to qualitatively and quantitatively detect unpaired electrons contained in a substance atom or molecule and to explore the structural properties of its surrounding environment.
In electron paramagnetic resonance experiments, the resonant cavity plays an important role. In order to meet different experimental requirements, the resonant cavity also has different forms, and rectangular cavities, cylindrical cavities, medium cavities, slit cavities and the like are commonly used. The existing resonant cavity has the following problems: ⑴ The filling factor is low, the filling factor determines the magnetic field conversion efficiency, and the rectangular cavity and the cylindrical cavity, although the Q value of the rectangular cavity and the cylindrical cavity is high, EPR signals can not be detected in some samples with extremely low sensitivity; ⑵ The quality factor is low, the Q value is one of important factors for determining the EPR signal intensity, the crack cavity filling factor is high, but the Q value is low, and the resonant cavity is rarely used in continuous wave electron paramagnetic resonance experiments; ⑶ The coupling structure has single function, the existing resonant cavity focuses on critical coupling, the use of the resonant cavity in the over-coupling state is often ignored, and in some special applications, such as a pulse electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer, the low-Q resonant cavity under the over-coupling condition can be used; ⑷ The low-frequency modulation field has poor coupling capability, and the phase-sensitive detection technology used in the electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer needs to couple a modulation magnetic field with certain intensity into the resonant cavity, so that the coupling capability of the existing coupling structure is poor.
Disclosure of Invention
The invention provides a microwave resonant cavity with a low-frequency modulation magnetic field coupling function and an electron paramagnetic resonance probe using the same.
The invention provides a microwave resonant cavity with low-frequency modulation field coupling capability, which comprises a vertically arranged annular sapphire crystal and a metal sleeve sleeved outside the annular sapphire crystal, wherein a plurality of gaps are formed in the metal sleeve in a horizontal equidistant ring.
Further, the dimensions of the annular sapphire crystal are 10mm in outer diameter, 5mm in inner diameter and 13mm in height; 10 gaps are formed in the metal sleeve, each gap is 0.18mm in height, and the distance between every two adjacent gaps is 1mm.
Furthermore, the upper part and the lower part of the annular sapphire crystal are limited and fixed through a Teflon gasket with a step inside, and the step size is matched with the size of the annular sapphire crystal.
The invention also protects an electron paramagnetic resonance probe using the microwave resonant cavity, which comprises the microwave resonant cavity, a tuning unit fixedly connected with the microwave resonant cavity and a coupling unit positioned between the tuning unit and the microwave resonant cavity, wherein the two sides of the microwave resonant cavity are provided with Helmholtz coils, each Helmholtz coil consists of a horizontally fixed coil fixing mechanism and an enameled wire coil wound on the coil fixing mechanism, and the coil fixing mechanism is made of an insulating material; the microwave resonant cavity and the Helmholtz coil are enclosed in a shell.
Further, the enameled wire coil is formed by winding 110 circles of enameled wires with the diameter of 0.51mm on the coil fixing mechanism.
Furthermore, the tuning unit adopts a tuning screw rod, and the coupling unit adopts small hole coupling.
Further, the microwave resonant cavity is fixed on a waveguide access plate, one side of the waveguide access plate, which is used for fixing the microwave resonant cavity, is vertically provided with a coupling hole, and the other side of the waveguide access plate is provided with a waveguide port; the tuning screw is vertically inserted into the waveguide access plate and extends to the waveguide port.
Further, the shell is composed of a waveguide access plate, an upper sealing plate, a lower sealing plate and a side sealing plate, and clamps for clamping detection samples are arranged on the upper sealing plate and the lower sealing plate; during detection, a sample is vertically inserted into the microwave resonant cavity.
The microwave resonant cavity disclosed by the invention has the advantages that the Q value is higher, the filling factor is higher, a medium with smaller inner diameter is used, the filling factor is improved, the filling factor is simulated to be 13.15%, and the actual measurement of the Q value is 1232; the Q value is tunable, the optimized coupling structure size is used, the tuning of the Q value range is realized, the lowest measured Q value can reach 171, and the method can be used for not only continuous wave EPR experiments, but also pulse EPR experiments; the special modulation field coupling structure is used, so that the modulation field coupling capability is strong, and the conversion efficiency of the modulation field is greatly improved; the requirements of electron paramagnetic resonance experiments are greatly met.
Drawings
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a microwave cavity;
FIG. 2 is a schematic illustration of a Teflon gasket construction;
FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of the internal structure of an electron paramagnetic resonance probe;
FIG. 4 is a schematic view of a waveguide port on a waveguide access plate;
FIG. 5 is a schematic view of coupling holes in a waveguide access plate;
FIG. 6 is a state diagram of an electron paramagnetic resonance probe inserted into a sample;
FIG. 7 is a diagram of an electron paramagnetic resonance probe waveguide input connection;
FIG. 8 is a simulation of microwave magnetic field distribution;
FIG. 9 is a simulation of the distribution of a low frequency modulated magnetic field;
fig. 10 shows S11 of the case of actual measurement of critical coupling and over-coupling of the microwave cavity.
Detailed Description
The invention will now be described in further detail with reference to the drawings and to specific examples. The embodiments of the invention have been presented for purposes of illustration and description, and are not intended to be exhaustive or limited to the invention in the form disclosed. Many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art. The embodiments were chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention and the practical application, and to enable others of ordinary skill in the art to understand the invention for various embodiments with various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated.
Example 1
The microwave resonant cavity 1 with the low-frequency modulation field coupling capability comprises a ring-shaped sapphire crystal (not shown in fig. 1) which is vertically arranged and a metal sleeve 101 which is sleeved outside the ring-shaped sapphire crystal, wherein a plurality of gaps 102 are formed in the metal sleeve in a horizontal equidistant ring mode. The dimension of the annular sapphire crystal is preferably 10mm in outer diameter, 5mm in inner diameter and 13mm in height; the gaps are preferably 10, each gap is 0.18mm in height, and the distance between every two adjacent gaps is 1mm.
The annular sapphire crystal is limited and fixed up and down through the Teflon gasket 103 with the built-in step, the annular sapphire crystal is ensured to be stably arranged in the metal sleeve, and the step size is matched with the size of the annular sapphire crystal. The teflon spacer structure is shown in fig. 2. The Teflon has small dielectric constant, small influence on the performance of the resonant cavity, safety and reliability.
The microwave resonant cavity main body is formed by adopting a sapphire medium, has excellent filling factor and a wide-range Q value tuning function, and is matched with an innovative shielding cavity gap structure, so that the resonant cavity has stronger low-frequency modulation magnetic field coupling capability.
Example 2
An electron paramagnetic resonance probe, as shown in fig. 3-5, comprises a microwave resonant cavity 1, a tuning unit fixedly connected with the microwave resonant cavity, and a coupling unit positioned between the tuning unit and the microwave resonant cavity, wherein two sides of the microwave resonant cavity are provided with Helmholtz coils 4, the Helmholtz coils 4 consist of a horizontally fixed coil fixing mechanism and an enameled wire coil wound on the coil fixing mechanism, and the coil fixing mechanism is made of an insulating material; the microwave resonant cavity 1 and the Helmholtz coil 4 are enclosed in a housing.
Specifically, in the embodiment, the dimensions of the annular sapphire crystal are 10mm in outer diameter, 5mm in inner diameter and 13mm in height; the size of the metal sleeve is 18mm in outer diameter, 16mm in inner diameter and 16mm in height; the enameled wire coil is preferably formed by winding 110 circles of enameled wires with the diameter of 0.51mm on the coil fixing mechanism, and the wiring part of the coil is sealed through a heat-shrinkable tube.
The tuning unit adopts a tuning screw rod 2, and the coupling unit adopts small holes for coupling. Specifically, in this embodiment, the microwave resonant cavity 1 is fixed on the waveguide access board 5, one side of the waveguide access board 5, where the microwave resonant cavity is fixed, is vertically provided with the coupling hole 3, and the other side is provided with the waveguide port 6; the tuning screw 2 is inserted vertically into the waveguide access plate 5 and extends to the waveguide port 6. Coupling hole dimensions 7.9mm 1mm.
The shell consists of a waveguide access plate 5, an upper sealing plate 7, a lower sealing plate 8 and a side sealing plate 9, wherein the upper sealing plate 7 and the lower sealing plate 8 are respectively provided with a clamp 10 for clamping a detection sample; at the time of detection, the sample 11 is vertically inserted into the microwave cavity as shown in fig. 6. The lower sealing plate 8 is provided with an aviation connector 12 for connecting the Helmholtz coil with an external signal source, so that a low-frequency modulation magnetic field is generated inside the resonant cavity. Using ANSOFT corporation software Maxwell simulation, the magnetic induction at the center of the coupling into media was 0.98Gauss when the modulated current was 100 mA.
The waveguide port size is WR90 standard waveguide size. In actual use, the waveguide port 6 is connected to a microwave signal, as shown in fig. 7, the microwave signal is connected to the waveguide port 6 through the coaxial waveguide conversion structure 14 and the 90 ° switching waveguide 13, and the microwave signal is coupled into the microwave resonant cavity 1 through the coupling hole 3. The external low-frequency modulation magnetic field is coupled into the microwave resonant cavity 1 through the gap on the metal sleeve. And tuning the coupling degree by using a tuning screw rod, and adjusting the insertion depth of the tuning screw rod to enable the microwave resonant cavity to have a Q value tuning function.
The microwave resonant cavity is applied to an X-band electron paramagnetic resonance spectrometer, the resonant frequency of the microwave resonant cavity is 9.525GHz, S11 is least superior to-30 dB, the tunable range of the Q value is 171-1232, and the highest value corresponds to the Q value under the conditions of over-coupling and critical coupling in FIG. 10 respectively.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the described embodiments are merely some, but not all, of the embodiments of the invention and that various modifications or additions may be made to the specific embodiments described or substituted in a similar way without deviating from the spirit of the invention or beyond the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. All other embodiments, which can be made by those skilled in the art and which are included in the embodiments of the present invention without the inventive step, are intended to be within the scope of the present invention.