µSR

Opening Remarks   by

Jess H. Brewer

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.


Jess H. Brewer
Last modified: Wed Sep 2 11:00:45 PDT 1998