Microwave dielectric and Hall effect measurements on biological materials

Abstract

A technique for the measurement of the Hall effect Faraday-type rotation at microwave frequencies is described. The essential features of this electrodeless technique are the employment of a bimodal resonating cavity and the fact that intra- and inter-crystalline defects can be ignored. A new approach of possible significance for measurements on hydrated biological materials is proposed, by which the perturbations of a resonating cavity on insertion of a thin, small dielectric specimen may be formulated to include perturbations higher than the first order. The theory of the Hall effect Faraday-type rotation relevant to biological materials, where the effect of displacement currents associated with loosely bound water must be included, is outlined. Hall mobility results are given for some biomacromolecules, rat liver mitochondria and spinach chloroplasts.