University of California

Adam Moule

Alexander Pines

Carlos A Meriles

Dimitrios Sakellariou

Megan Spence

Sunil Saxena

Song-I Han

Josef Granwehr

Henrike Heise

Juliette A Seeley

Kimberly L Pierce

An apparatus and method for remote NMR/MRI spectroscopy having an encoding coil with a sample chamber, a supply of signal carriers, preferably hyperpolarized xenon and a detector allowing the spatial and temporal separation of signal preparation and signal detection steps. This separation allows the physical conditions and methods of the encoding and detection steps to be optimized independently. The encoding of the carrier molecules may take place in a high or a low magnetic field and conventional NMR pulse sequences can be split between encoding and detection steps. In one embodiment, the detector is a high magnetic field NMR apparatus. In another embodiment, the detector is a superconducting quantum interference device. A further embodiment uses optical detection of Rb&#x2014;Xe spin exchange. Another embodiment uses an optical magnetometer using non-linear Faraday rotation. Concentration of the signal carriers in the detector can greatly improve the signal to noise ratio.

Remote NMR/MRI detection of laser polarized gases

A method and apparatus for ex-situ nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy for use on samples outside the physical limits of the magnets in inhomogeneous static and radio-frequency fields. Chemical shift spectra can be resolved with the method using sequences of correlated, composite z-rotation pulses in the presence of spatially matched static and radio frequency field gradients producing nutation echoes. The amplitude of the echoes is modulated by the chemical shift interaction and an inhomogeneity free FID may be recovered by stroboscopically sampling the maxima of the echoes. In an alternative embodiment, full-passage adiabatic pulses are consecutively applied. One embodiment of the apparatus generates a static magnetic field that has a variable saddle point.

Method and apparatus for high resolution ex-situ NMR spectroscopy

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Albany, CA, United States of America

Adam Moule