Linewidths in mT and MHz

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thanasis
Local Expert
Posts: 260
Joined: Thu Jan 21, 2016 6:28 am
Location: Strasbourg

Linewidths in mT and MHz

Post by thanasis »

Hello,

From the very basic relation between MW frequency and resonance magnetic field (see mt2mhz / mhz2mt functions), one is proportional to the other.

I would therefore expect that line widths in MHz (for frequency-sweep experiments) and mT (for field-sweep experiments) would be interconvertible with the above functions.

Is that, however, rigorously correct? Is there some finer factor that has to be considered?

Thanks!

Stefan Stoll
EasySpin Creator
Posts: 1120
Joined: Mon Jul 21, 2014 10:11 pm
Location: University of Washington

Re: Linewidths in mT and MHz

Post by Stefan Stoll »

It's not totally trivial. Several points:

  • The more fundamental property is the frequency-domain line broadening. In EasySpin, it is assumed to be Gaussian. Whenever you use any of the strain broadenings, this gets used.
  • EasySpin uses field-domain linewidths (Sys.lwpp and Sys.lw) just for convolutional broadening. Therefore, every orientation gets the same broadening, even if the g tensor is very anisotropic. There is no physics behind these convolutional broadenings, i.e. no mechanism is assumed. It's purely phenomenological.
  • In general, the field-domain line shape resulting from a Gaussian frequency-domain broadening is non-Gaussian and asymmetric, if the energy level dependence on the magnetic field is non-linear (which it is very often).

A good read regarding this topic is Pilbrow's book on Transition Metal EPR.

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