The prospects for polarized target materials with pure carbon background

None of the materials presently in common use for polarized proton targets has a pure carbon nuclear background. The alcohols and diols contain some oxygen, and the ammonia and amine-based materials contain nitrogen and/or other noncarbon species. In the latter cases the noncarbon nuclei are measurably polarized as a concomitant of the process used to polarize the hydrogen nuclei. The relative simplicity of a pure carbon background would be advantageous for most types of scattering experiments and perhaps crucial for some. In addition to simplifying the kinematics of background events, pure carbon is relatively easy to prepare as a ''dummy'' target for background subtraction. Also, in such a target material, 13C-enrichment would yield a clean polarized 13C material. In this note I explore the possibilities for such materials, touching upon only what I consider to be the ''high'' points. The subject matter is capable of nearly endless ramification and speculation. In fact, owing to a general lack of relevant experimental data, even this relatively brief note contains much that is speculative to some degree