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The International Muon Ionization Cooling Experiment (MICE) is designed to demonstrate the currently untested technique of ionization cooling. Theoretically, this process can condition the high quality muon beams required to build a neutrino factory or muon collider which will be the next generation of machines for the study of Particle Physics. The beam line to transport muons into the MICE cooling channel lattice cell was installed in December 2009. Step I of the experimental programme, whose goal was to demonstrate that the beam line can generate beams similar to those expected in a neutrino factory cooling channel, was completed in August 2010. Methods were developed to use time difference measurements in the MICE time of flight counters (TOFs) to obtain a transverse spatial resolution of approximately 10 mm and to track muons through the focusing elements of the beam line, thus allowing the trace space vectors of individual muons to be reconstructed and their integrated path length to be calculated. The TOFs were used to make an absolute measurement of the momentum of muons with zero bias and a systematic error of less than 3 MeV/c. The measured trace space vectors of single muons were used to estimate the emittances and approximate optical parameters of eighteen muon beams. The results of beam line simulations were compared with the measurements and, once the effects of experimental resolution had had been included, found to be in good agreement. A sample of individual muons whose phase space vectors had been measured was injected into a simulation of the full MICE cooling channel; the beam was found to be suitable for demonstrating muon cooling, although some fine tuning of the cooling channel optics will eventually be required.

The purpose of this thesis is to study the electron spin relaxation (eSR) in small organic molecular semiconductors using the muon spin relaxation (MuSR) technique. One of the inherent problems in utilising the spin degree of freedom is the lack of understanding of the fundamental mechanisms behind spin relaxation. Two interactions have been proposed as the dominant mechanisms behind the spin relaxation, the Hyper ne interaction (HFI) and the Spin Orbit (SO) interaction. There remains much debate over the models for these interactions and their exact role, a contention that drives the work carried out in this thesis. The MuSR technique is utilised providing a novel molecular scale probe sensitive to relaxation rates in the range of 0.01-10 MHz. The Avoided Level crossing (ALC) MuSR application is useful in accessing the spin relaxation information. Temperature dependent ALC-MuSR measurements are performed for a selection of functionalised acenes and Quinolate molecules. Transverse eld MuSR measurements are also taken to determine the Hyper ne coupling constants present. DFT and semi-empirical computational methods are employed to determine theoretical values for the isotropic and anisotropic terms and the suitability of these methods was discussed. It is concluded that an intra-molecular eSR is present in all small organic molecular semiconductors. The mechanism behind this eSR was found not to be the HFI but in fact the SO interaction. It is also determined that the eSR is coupling to the vibrations in the molecule and a possible theory based on the curvature of the molecule from the vibrational modes inducing an enhanced SO coupling is proposed, which results in the eSR. The nal part of this thesis looks at the future experiments that have been initiated or can be conducted to further the understanding of spin relaxation and determine the role of a vibrationally enhanced SO coupling.