Free induction decay 2026-10-18
Free induction decay is a receiving signal from freely precessing transverse magnetization after excitation ends. Faraday's law of induction gives coil voltage proportional to the time derivative of linked magnetic flux, with sign set by the winding. At its envelope follows the transverse magnetization; a fixed receiver phase can absorb the derivative's near-quadrature shift. We define the calibrated complex signal below to represent magnetization, not raw coil voltage.
For an original teaching model, take positive , a circular drive , and axes rotating at about . Define , , and . The Bloch equations become
A linearly oscillating field of peak amplitude has a co-rotating component of amplitude ; neglecting its counter-rotating component requires near resonance.
At resonance, a short pulse starting from gives with , neglecting relaxation during duration . A receiver phase rotation can make a pulse's initial transverse signal real. After the pulse, direct integration gives
These are the two components extracted by quadrature demodulation. Differentiating verifies ; taking its magnitude separates decay from detuning.
Choose rounded illustrative , , , and . Then and the duration is , short relative to both relaxation times. For receiver detuning and , and . These are calculated examples, not 1946 measurements.
Figure 1.
A pulse, rotating-frame quadratures and the corresponding resonance width
. Original calculated Bloch equations example with the parameters above. The resonant pulse rotates magnetization towards ; a receiver phase makes . The later free signal has 5 Hz detuning. The final panel shows the normalized weak-drive homogeneous absorption profile, centered on resonance. None of these curves is a historical trace. Details.
The first-order grating equation is , so , about lines per millimetre. For equally illuminated lines,
Principal maxima stay at the same angles, their peaks scale as for fixed illumination per line, and their angular widths shrink as . The resolving power of a diffraction grating is . Thus first order needs and illuminated width .
The grating dispersion follows by differentiation: . With a detector centred on the chief ray, one pixel corresponds approximately to
This exceeds the nominal grating width. The practical resolution scale is therefore a few nanometres; two-pixel sampling gives about . Exact resolvability also depends on slit width and image sampling. Taking the detector coordinate as about the original axis instead changes the single-pixel estimate only to .
For ideal photon counting, Poisson distribution statistics give SNR . Hence and .
Use a lock-in amplifier for phase-sensitive detection: chop or otherwise modulate the source before the entrance slit, retaining a synchronous reference. At each grating setting amplify the photodiode output, multiply it by a reference and low-pass filter. For a signal and reference , the low-pass output is ; quadrature demodulation also recovers . Choose the modulation frequency above slow drift while within the source/detector bandwidth and away from strong electrical interference. Average for many cycles before changing the grating setting.
Figure 1.
Chopped-source spectral detection
. Original functional diagram separates modulation of the wanted source from unmodulated detector dark current and stray light. A shared reference drives demodulation; low-pass averaging sets the detected bandwidth. Details.
This rejects steady backgrounds and reduces low-frequency noise through narrow-band detection. It does not remove random dark-current/stray-light shot noise within that bandwidth, nor a background modulated coherently with the source. The chopping geometry must therefore distinguish wanted light from stray paths.[ref]
A 2013 experiment by Paul A. Williams and collaborators mounted a 25-mm dielectric mirror on a commercial force-restoration balance. Removing its pan-weight compensation spring allowed horizontal force sensing with a horizontal laser path. They measured mirror optical reflectance and varied incidence from about to . A 1071-nm laser, capable of 530 W, was switched at 0.1 Hz. Digitized mass-equivalent readings were converted to force using ; quadrature demodulation isolated the switched signal from drift. [ref]
Measurement calibration used a 20-g mass, with checks down to 1 mg. The optical forces lay below that checked range, limiting the accuracy claim. An angle scan tested the predicted cosine dependence at fixed intercepted power. Replacing the mirror with a carbon nanotube coated absorber increased absorbed power while reducing the predicted optical force; no modulation peak was detected. This bounded gas-heating artifacts under those conditions, rather than proving their universal absence. The fitted slope was about 7% below . Inferring laser power requires calibrated force, optical reflectance, radiometric absorptance and angle of incidence, with measurement uncertainty for each. [ref]