Lab report

Submitted by:
Safi Ullah 1746
M.Shahzaib 1716
Faheem Abbas 1715
Sameer Khan 1755
M.Usama Raheem 1806
Electron spin resonance
Introduction:
Electron spin resonance dating, or ESR dating, is a technique used to date materials which
radiocarbon dating cannot, including minerals (e.g., carbonates, silicates, sulphates), biological
materiel archaeological materials (ceramics) and food (e.g., potato chips). Electron spin
resonance dating was first introduced to the science community in 1975, when Japanese
nuclear physicist Motoji Ikeya dated a speleothem in Akiyoshi Cave, Japan.ESR dating measures
the amount of unpaired electrons in crystalline structures that were previously exposed to
natural radiation. The age of substance can be determined by measuring the dosage of
radiation since the time of its formation.

ESR Theory:
The basic setup for ESR is shown in Fig. 7.1. A test sample is placed in a uniform magnetic field.
The sample is also wrapped within a coil that is connected to an RF (radio frequency) oscillator.
The smaller magnetic field induced in the coil by the oscillator is at right angles to the uniform
magnetic field.
Consider, for the moment, a single electron within the test sample. The electron has an intrinsic
(not related to any orbital motion!) magnetic dipole moment µs that is related to its intrinsic
angular momentum, or spin, by the vector equation:µs = −gsµBS where: gs = a constant
characteristic of the electron, its intrinsic g-factor µB = the Bohr magneton = e/2me = 5.788 ×
10−9eV /G s = the spin of the electron = Planck’s constant/2π = 6.582 × 10−16 eV-sec, or ~c =
197.3 eV-nm. The magnetic dipole moment of this electron interacts with the uniform magnetic
field, E = −~µs · B~ . Due to its quantum nature, the electron can orient its spin in one of only
two ways (“space quantization”), spin up or spin down, with energies equal to E0±gsµBB/2;
where E0 is the energy of the electron before the magnetic field was applied.In the language of
Quantum Mechanics, the energy degeneracy has been lifted by the B field, i.e. the energy level
has been split. The energy difference between these two possible orientations is equal to
gsµBB.
Working of ESR:
Although the equation permits a large combination of frequency and magnetic field values, the
great majority of EPR measurements are made with microwaves in the 9000–10000 MHz (9–10
GHz) region.EPR spectra can be generated mostly by keeping the photon frequency fixed while
varying the magnetic field incident on a sample.A collection of paramagnetic centers, such as
free radicals, is exposed to microwaves at a fixed frequency. By increasing an external magnetic
field, the gap between the and energy states is widened until it matches the energy of the
microwaves.At this point the unpaired electrons can move between their two spin states. Since
there typically are more electrons in the lower state, due to the Maxwell–Boltzmann
distribution, there is a net absorption of energy.It Is this absorption that is monitored and
converted into a spectrum.
Applications:
Electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy has been widely applied in the research of
biological free radicals for quantitative and qualitative analyses of reactive oxygen species (ROS)
and reactive nitrogen species (RNS). The ESR spin-trapping method was developed in the early
1970s and enabled the analysis of short-lived free radicals. This method is now widely used as
one of the most powerful tools for free radical studies. In this report, some of the studies that
applied ESR for the measurement of ROS and RNS during oxidative stress are discussed.
Electron spin resonance dating is being used in fields like radiation chemistry, biochemistry, and
as well as geology, archaeology, and anthropology.ESR dating is used instead of radiocarbon
dating or radiometric dating because ESR dating can be applied on materials different from
other methods, as well as covering different age ranges. The dating of buried teeth has served
as the basis for the dating of human remains.Studies have been used to date burnt flint and
quartz found in certain ancient ceramics. ESR dating has been widely applied to date
hydrothermal vents and sometimes to mine minerals. Newer ESR dating applications include
dating previous earthquakes from fault gouge, past volcanic eruptions, tectonic activity along
coastlines, fluid flow in accretionary prisms.

Reliability:
Trapped electrons only have a limited time frame when they are within the intermediate
energy level stages. After a certain time range, or temperature fluctuations, trapped electrons
will return to their energy states and recombine with holes.The recombination of electrons with
their holes is only negligible if the average life is ten times higher than the age of the sample
being dated.New heating events may erase previous ESR ages so in environments with multiple
episodes of heating, such as in hydrothermal vents, maybe only newly formed minerals can be
dated with ESR dating but not older minerals. This explains why samples from the same
hydrothermal chimney may give different ESR ages.In environments with multiple phases of
mineral formation, generally, ESR dating gives the average age of the bulk mineral while
radiometric dates are biased to the ages of younger phases because of the decay of parent
nuclei.