Static and dynamic polarization of HD

The static polarization of HD samples has been achieved using "brute force", for HD samples purified by double distillation. Proton polarization in excess of 60% and deuteron vector polarization higher than 14% have been reached. It has been demonstrated that the ageing technique allows to get relaxation times at 1.5 K and 1 T larger than a week. It is advocated that the conventional dynamic polarization of HD should be feasible for the proton and the deuteron contained in the HD molecule. This would simplify considerably the machinery presently necessary to perform nuclear physics experiments with HD targets polarized by the static method. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.