AN AUTOMATED AC-MAGNETIC SUSCEPTIBILITY APPARATUS

We report here both hardware and software for an ac susceptibility measurement system, namely the design and construction of the cryostat, coil system, sample rod assembly and also the automation of the sample rod movement, bridge control and nulling etc with the help of an inexpensive Z-80A microprocessor via a home-made IEEE-488 interface. The variable parameters are temperature, magnitude of the rms field and frequency. An entirely new dynamic bridge nulling algorithm with continuous sample movement, which eliminates to a large extent problems related to time-dependent drifts, has been developed. We also present some experimental data collected with this system.