We study relaxation of a spin in magnetic resonance force microscopy (MRFM) experiments. We evaluate the relaxation rate for the spin caused by high-frequency mechanical noise of the cantilever under the conditions of adiabatic spin inversion. We find qualitative agreement between the obtained relaxation time and the experimental results of Stipe {\it et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 277602 (2001)]. Based on our analysis, we propose a method for improving the MRFM sensitivity by engineering cantilevers with reduced tip positional fluctuations.
@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0210218,
title = {Theory of spin relaxation in magnetic resonance force microscopy},
author = {D. Mozyrsky and I. Martin and D. Pelekhov and P. C. Hammel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0210218},
year = {2009}
}