Stretched Relaxation and Inhomogeneity

Summer REU undergraduate student Hyeonseon (Sunny) Choi recently published her work on the analysis of inhomogeneous spin lattice relaxation of quadrupolar nuclei. She used a relatively new and interesting technique of Inverse Laplace Transforms to investigate the magnetization recovery of simulated data with a stretching exponent. Stretched relaxation indicates that there is a distribution of relaxation rates, and is a relatively common behavior in strongly correlated electron materials with quenched disorder or doping. Her study established the range of applicability of the inverse Laplace technique, and also established the correct form for stretched relaxation for nuclei with spins greater than 1/2. Importantly, Sunny accomplished all of this while working remotely during the pandemic. She is now in graduate school at Northwestern University. Congratulations Sunny!