Phase-sensitive dynamic susceptibility setup for measurements in pulsed magnetic fields

Dynamic susceptibility, commonly referred to as AC susceptibility, χ_AC, is a powerful tool to characterize a material's magnetic properties in the presence of a magnetic field B, such as magnetic ordering or spin-relaxation phenomena. The standard technique for accessing χ_AC is based on measurements of the voltage which is induced in a coil by changes of a sample's magnetization in response to a small oscillating magnetic field. Importantly, this setup allows for a phase-sensitive detection of the susceptibility, thereby providing information on the magnetization dynamics. This method is frequently used in the low-field range, up to several Tesla, where DC fields are readily available. However, there is a growing demand for such magnetic measurements at higher fields, conveniently accessible by the use of pulse-field technology. Whereas various techniques are available for measuring the in-phase part of the susceptibility χ_AC ^', none of them allows for the determination of the out-of-phase part χ_AC ^″. Here we present a realization of an AC susceptometer for measurements of both the in- and out-of-phase component at frequencies up to 47 kHz and an oscillating amplitude of 1.5 mT in a pulsed magnetic field. With this setup, a magnetic signal of 3.6 × 10^-6 emu can be resolved. As the setup also enables susceptibility measurements to be performed before and after the field pulse, it can be used to detect temperature changes in response to changes of the magnetic field. This will be demonstrated by measurements on the low-dimensional spin-1/2 system CuSO₄·5H₂O.