6–8 Aug 2025
PSI
Europe/Zurich timezone

Noninvasive, multichannel nuclear magnetic resonance chemical analysis via OPM arrays in the zero- to ultralow-field regime

8 Aug 2025, 14:50
20m
WHGA/001 - Auditorium (PSI)

WHGA/001 - Auditorium

PSI

Oral presentation OPM Applications II

Speaker

Blake Andrews (University of California, Berkeley)

Description

We leverage an array of commercially available OPMs to perform sensitive, high throughput nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) on multiple chemical samples simultaneously for the first time by leveraging the zero- to ultralow-field (ZULF) regime, with proof-of-principle demonstrations suggesting the feasibility of constructing a 100-OPM-channel device. This regime offers many advantages over conventional NMR methods, such as significantly relaxed magnetic field homogeneity requirements, which significantly mitigates cost. Stable operation for weeks without field drift or need for recalibration has also been achieved, along with the ability to detect analytes non-invasively through various materials, such as metal. We demonstrate significant improvements in sensitivity, namely, the ability to measure “off the shelf” samples without isotopic enrichment, with performance similar to commercial benchtop systems, addressing a critical barrier to real-world application. Lastly, ZULF NMR is a noninvasive chemical fingerprinting tool that can potentially yield precise through-bond coupling values for molecular identification when paired with ab initio calculations.

Author

Blake Andrews (University of California, Berkeley)

Co-authors

Raphael Zumbrunn (ETH Zürich) Xiao Liu (University of California, Berkeley) Calvin Lee (University of California, Berkeley) Emanuel Druga (University of California, Berkeley) Ashok Ajoy (University of California, Berkeley)

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