UHF multi-frequency lockin amplifier for nanomagnetism lab-on-a-chip

这项提案要求新提供一种电子仪器，能够以独特的敏感方式测量特高频（“高频”，在这种情况下高达600兆赫）电信号。 该工具将使我们能够了解比我们现在所知道的更多的单个微小磁性物体的特性，例如大多数数据存储系统的构建块，以及许多自然产生的磁性纳米粒子，这些纳米粒子传递有关其环境的信息。 60年前由普林斯顿大学的罗伯特迪凯发明的锁定放大技术，是实验物理学家工具箱中最强大的电子仪器技术之一。 该方法能够非常灵敏地检测振荡性质的小信号。 从本质上讲，这个想法是使用一个“参考”波，已知是在完全相同的频率作为一个模板，用于检查数据流非常有选择性地在搜索模式匹配的指纹参考。 大约20年前，数字电子技术与锁相放大器的结合开始改善这些仪器的功能。 最近，改进的速度显著增加，为锁定技术开辟了新的应用领域，其频率比几十年前最初可获得的频率高出一百万倍。 最新的仪器现在在磁性纳米系统的一些最具信息性的特性，即它们的磁共振的范围内运行。

This proposal requests a newly available electronic instrument capable of measuring UHF ("ultrahigh frequency", in this case up to 600 MHz) electrical signals in a uniquely sensitive manner. The tool will allow us to learn much more than we know now about the properties of single, tiny magnetic objects such as the building blocks of most data storage systems, and many naturally occuring magnetic nanoparticles which convey information about their environment. Lockin amplification, invented six decades ago by Robert Dicke at Princeton, is one of the most powerful electronic instrumentation techniques in the experimental physicist's toolkit. The method enables remarkably sensitive detection of small signals of an oscillatory nature. In essence, the idea is to use a "reference" wave, known to be at exactly the same frequency as the signal, as a template for examining a data stream very selectively in search only of patterns matching the fingerprint of the reference. The incorporation of digital electronics into lockin amplifiers began to improve the functionality of these instruments about two decades ago. Very recently the rate of improvement has increased markedly, opening new areas of application for the lockin technique at frequencies more than a million times higher than originally accessible, decades ago. The latest instrument now operates in the range of some of the most informative properties of magnetic nanosystems, their magnetic resonances.