Nuclear magnetic resonance relaxometry as a method of measuring translational diffusion coefficients in liquids

By application of the field-cycling technique, we measure the dispersion of the (1)H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spin-lattice relaxation time T(1)(ω) for a series of molecular liquids. We demonstrate that such NMR relaxometry studies can be used for determining diffusion coefficients. A broad frequency range of 10 kHz-20 MHz is covered. By scanning T(1)(ω) one directly probes the spectral density of the diffusion processes. The value of the diffusion coefficient D can be determined from a linear dependence of the (1)H spin-lattice relaxation rate on the square root of the frequency at which it is measured. The power of this method lies in its simplicity, which allows one to determine D(T) independently of the diffusive model. The results obtained are in very good agreement with those of field gradient NMR methods.