A dozen useful tips on how to minimise the influence of sources of error in quantitative electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy—A review

Abstract

The principal and the most important error sources in quantitative electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) measurements arising from sample-associated factors are the influence of the variation of the sample material (dielectric constant), sample size and shape, sample tube wall thickness, and sample orientation and positioning within the microwave cavity on the EPR signal intensity. Variation in these parameters can cause significant and serious errors in the primary phase of quantitative EPR analysis (i.e., data acquisition). The primary aim of this review is to provide useful suggestions, recommendations and simple procedures to minimise the influence of such primary error sources in quantitative EPR measurements. According to the literature, as well as results obtained in our EPR laboratory, the following are recommendations for samples, which are compared in quantitative EPR studies: (i) the shape of all samples should be identical; (ii) the position of the sample/reference in the cavity should be identical; (iii) a special alignment procedure for precise sample positioning within the cavity should be adopted; (iv) a special/consistent procedure for sample packing for a powder material should be used; (v) the wall thickness of sample tubes should be identical; (vi) the shape and wall thickness of quartz Dewars, where used, should be identical; (vii) where possible a double TE 104 cavity should be used in quantitative EPR spectroscopy; (viii) the dielectric properties of unknown and standard samples should be as close as possible; (ix) sample length less than double the cavity length should be used; (x) the optimised sample geometry for the X-band cavity is a 30 mm-length capillary with i.d. less then 1.5 mm; (xi) use of commercially distributed software for post-recording spectra manipulation is a basic necessity; and (xii) the sample and laboratory temperature should be kept constant during measurements. When the above recommendations and procedures were used in our quantitative EPR experiments (with a Bruker ER 200 D-SRC EPR spectrometer with a Bruker double TE 104 rectangular cavity and air conditioning) the EPR signal intensity of a wide range of samples could be obtained with the experimental errors between 3 and 5%. However, if these special precautions were not employed the errors could be in excess of 20% or more. We believe that these tips are helpful in quantitative EPR practice.