  In this work, I present measurements of persistent currents in normal metal
rings performed with cantilever torsional magnetometry. With this technique,
the typical persistent current (the component that varies randomly from ring to
ring) was measured with high sensitivity. I report measured magnitudes as low
as 1 pA, over two orders of magnitude smaller than that observed in previous
studies. These measurements extend the range of temperature and magnetic field
over which the typical current has been observed. The wide magnetic field range
allowed us to study the effect of magnetic field penetrating the ring. It also
enabled the recording of many independent measurements of the current magnitude
in a single sample. These independent measurements are necessary to
characterize the persistent current magnitude because it is a random quantity.
From these measurements of the persistent current, I also characterize the
parametric dependence of the typical current on sample orientation and number
of rings. In addition to presenting the experimental results, I thoroughly
review the theory of the typical persistent current in the diffusive regime. I
begin with the simplest model and build up to the case appropriate for the
samples studied in our experiments. I also present in detail the experimental
apparatus used to measure the persistent currents.
