Suppression of Spin Diffusion near a Micron-size Ferromagnet

We have used the large gradients generated near the ferromagnetic tip of a magnetic resonance force microscope to locally suppress spin diffusion in a silica sample containing paramagnetic electron spins. By controlling the slice location with respect to the tip, the magnetic field gradient was varied from 1 × 10^-4 to 0.36 G/nm, resulting in a 4× decrease in T₁ ^-1 and a similar decrease in T_1p ^-1 . The observed dependence of the relaxation rates on field gradient is consistent with the quenching of flip-flop interactions that mediate the transport of magnetization between slow and fast relaxing spins.