µSR
Opening Remarks by
Canadian Inst. for Advanced Research
and
Dept. of Physics & Astronomy,
Univ. of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1
This page is under construction at
/~jess/musr/
In order for a given experimental method to flourish,
there must be a sort of ``impedance matching'' between
the availability of necessary resources (both material
and human), the development of sophisticated techniques
and robust interpretive models, the emergence of timely
and exciting applications, the growth of an enthusiastic
user community and the initiative of expert practicioners.
Of course, apart from faith in ``progress'' generally,
there is no obvious reason why one should desire that
a given experimental method should flourish -
unless one happens to be one of its practicioners,
in which case there is no doubt.
As a practicioner of
muon spin rotation/relaxation/resonance (µSR),
I am naturally pleased that µSR
has become an indispensible experimental tool
of condensed matter physics, chemistry and other material science
as well as atomic, subatomic and other
fundamental physics disciplines.
This Web Talk outlines the history of µSR,
the basic muon physics that makes it possible,
some of the principal µSR techniques
and a few of their main areas of application today.