Edward Mills Purcell, Henry Cutler Torrey and Robert Vivian Pound observed nuclear magnetic resonance through absorption in a bulk solid. A static magnetic field separates nuclear magnetic energy levels, and an applied radiofrequency field drives resonant transitions. Measuring the absorbed signal connects a microscopic nuclear moment with a laboratory electromagnetic circuit. The experiment helped make nuclear-spin behavior accessible in ordinary condensed samples.[ref]
Resonance Absorption by Nuclear Magnetic Moments in a Solid by Edward Mills Purcell and others. Physical Review 69, 37 (1946), bulk resonance-absorption observation
Portrait of Edward Mills Purcell
. Unknown photographer; Nobel Foundation, Les Prix Nobel en 1952, editor Göran Liljestrand, Stockholm 1953. Commons PD-Sweden photograph claim, with a request for an additional US public-domain tag. Rights elsewhere are not independently determined., via Wikimedia Commons. Source.
Edward Mills Purcell (1912–1997) was an American physicist best known for his work in the field of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and its applications. In 1952, Purcell, along with Felix Bloch, independently discovered that atomic nuclei in a magnetic field can absorb and re-emit electromagnetic radiation.
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