Centre for Advanced Electron Spin Resonance (CAESR)
The EPR facility located in the
Inorganic Chemistry Research Laboratory houses state-of-the-art CW and pulse EPR instruments operating at X-band (10 GHz) and W-band (94 GHz). The facility is operated by Dr. Christiane Timmel (Facility Director) and Dr. William Myers (Applications Manager).
The Centre for Advanced Electron Spin Resonance (CAESR) was installed in April 2007 and provides a state-of-the-art facility for use by biochemists, chemists and physicists. We are funded by the research councils EPSRC and BBSRC. Our aim is to encourage a multidisciplinary approach to the development of EPR that is driven by the strong symbiosis of methodology design and technique application. The 11 investigators involved with the centre have very diverse projects which cover the disciplines of chemistry, biological chemistry, material sciences, and physics. The following research areas reflect the multidiscipline nature of CAESR: catalysis, protein-protein recognition, pathogen-host interactions, transmembrane proteins, methodology of electron-electron distance measurements, hydrogen storage, transparent conductors, solvated electrons, and quantum computing.
To promote the use of the centre we are running a series of EPR lectures dedicated to introducing the techniques of modern EPR which are used to determine the spin Hamiltonian parameters from samples in both the solid and liquid states, and to transform the spin Hamiltonian parameters into structural and electronic information such as electron-electron distances, electron–nuclei distances, spin densities, and spin states. EPR specific techniques or phenomena such as electron nuclear double resonance (ENDOR), electron spin echo envelope modulation (ESEEM), double electron-electron resonance (DEER or ELDOR), dynamics, and double quantum (DQ) EPR will be covered.
Each month there will be an EPR seminar (held on the last Monday of each month) to be given by one of the EPR investigators which will help advance the EPR projects and generate lively discussions. At this meeting the spectrometer measurement timetable for the following month will be scheduled.