Spintronic and Electronic Phenomena in Organic Molecules Measured with Μsr

The use of implanted muons to probe the spin dynamics and electronic excitations in organic materials is reviewed. At first, a brief introduction to the historical context and background of the muon technique is given, followed by an outline of some of the underlying theoretical models needed to quantitatively interpret data taken on organic molecules. Caution is advised when using certain theoretical models for the interpretation of low-field spin relaxation data. The next section deals with spin dynamics in soft materials, and starts with discussing many of the key results in thin films, followed by a review of bulk measurements in three different materials classes-polymers, biologically active molecules, and small molecules. Finally, we present a detailed discussion of the density functional theory methodology when applied to mu SR, and present the common issues encountered when trying to perform these calculations to support muon experiments. In particular, we discuss a method for benchmarking to manage the approximations inherent to the technique and common sources of errors that can sometimes fortuitously cancel.