Optically Detected Spin Locking of Zero Field Electronic Triplet States and Cross Relaxation in the Rotating Frame

The spin locking method known from NMR is shown to be useful also in ESR for investigating spin lattice relaxation problems and “slow” motions, e. g. questions of energy transfer by triplet states in organic molecular crystals, and probing of nuclear quadrupolar splittings even smaller than the ESR line width at zero magnetic field.

Optically detected ESR spin locking experiments for isolated triplet states in zero field are demonstrated. It is shown how the complication of incoming and decaying triplet states and relaxation between all three triplet sublevels has to be handled during spin locking. An application, the study of the cross-relaxation between electronic triplet spin states and deuteron or proton spins is presented. These experiments are possible in spite of the first order quenching of the hyperfine coupling in zero magnetic field. Another application is briefly mentioned, in which the adiabatically demagnetized state in the rotating frame is used to probe the electronic triplet state transfer and nuclear spin lattice relaxation.