Optical pumping magnetic resonance in high magnetic fields: Characterization of nuclear relaxation during pumping

Generation of laser-polarized xenon using fiber-coupled laser-diode arrays narrowed with integrated volume holographic gratings

Volume holographic gratings (VHGs) can be exploited to narrow the spectral output of high-power laser-diode arrays (LDAs) by nearly an order of magnitude, permitting more efficient generation of laser-polarized noble gases for various applications. A approximately 3-fold improvement in (129)Xe nuclear spin polarization, P(Xe), (compared to a conventional LDA) was achieved with the VHG-LDA's center wavelength tuned to a wing of the Rb D(1) line. Additionally, an anomalous dependence of P(Xe) on the xenon density within the OP cell is reported-including high P(Xe) values (>10%) at high xenon partial pressures (approximately 1000 torr).

NMR detection using laser-polarized xenon as a dipolar sensor

Hyperpolarized (129)Xe can be used as a sensor to indirectly detect NMR spectra of heteronuclei that are neither covalently bound nor necessarily in direct contact with the Xe atoms, but coupled through long-range intermolecular dipole-dipole interactions. To reintroduce long-range dipolar couplings the sample symmetry has to be broken. This can be done either by using an asymmetric sample arrangement, or by breaking the symmetry of the spin magnetization with field gradient pulses. Experiments are performed where only a small fraction of the available (129)Xe magnetization is used for each point, so that a single batch of xenon suffices for the point-by-point acquisition of a heteronuclear NMR spectrum. Examples with (1)H as the analyte nucleus show that these methods have the potential to obtain spectra with a resolution that is high enough to determine homonuclear J couplings. The applicability of this technique with remote detection is discussed.

Hyperpolarized xenon in NMR and MRI

Hyperpolarized gases have found a steadily increasing range of applications in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and NMR imaging (MRI). They can be regarded as a new class of MR contrast agent or as a way of greatly enhancing the temporal resolution of the measurement of processes relevant to areas as diverse as materials science and biomedicine. We concentrate on the properties and applications of hyperpolarized xenon. This review discusses the physics of producing hyperpolarization, the NMR-relevant properties of 129Xe, specific MRI methods for hyperpolarized gases, applications of xenon to biology and medicine, polarization transfer to other nuclear species and low-field imaging.

Nuclear magnetic resonance of laser-polarized noble gases in molecules, materials, and organisms

The sensitivity of conventional nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques is fundamentally limited by the ordinarily low spin polarization achievable in even the strongest NMR magnets. However, by transferring angular momentum from laser light to electronic and nuclear spins, optical pumping methods can increase the nuclear spin polarization of noble gases by several orders of magnitude, thereby greatly enhancing their NMR sensitivity. This review describes the principles and magnetic resonance applications of laser-polarized noble gases. The enormous sensitivity enhancement afforded by optical pumping can be exploited to permit a variety of novel NMR experiments across numerous disciplines. Many such experiments are reviewed, including the void-space imaging of organisms and materials, NMR and MRI of living tissues, probing structure and dynamics of molecules in solution and on surfaces, NMR sensitivity enhancement via polarization transfer, and low-field NMR and MRI.

SQUID detected NMR and NQR. Superconducting Quantum Interference Device

The dc Superconducting QUantum Interference Device (SQUID) is a sensitive detector of magnetic flux, with a typical flux noise of the order 1 muphi0 Hz(-1/2) at liquid helium temperatures. Here phi0 = h/2e is the flux quantum. In our NMR or NQR spectrometer, a niobium wire coil wrapped around the sample is coupled to a thin film superconducting coil deposited on the SQUID to form a flux transformer. With this untuned input circuit the SQUID measures the flux, rather than the rate of change of flux, and thus retains its high sensitivity down to arbitrarily low frequencies. This feature is exploited in a cw spectrometer that monitors the change in the static magnetization of a sample induced by radio frequency irradiation. Examples of this technique are the detection of NQR in 27Al in sapphire and 11B in boron nitride, and a level crossing technique to enhance the signal of 14N in peptides. Research is now focused on a SQUID-based spectrometer for pulsed NQR and NMR, which has a bandwidth of 0-5 MHz. This spectrometer is used with spin-echo techniques to measure the NQR longitudinal and transverse relaxation times of 14N in NH4ClO4, 63+/-6 ms and 22+/-2 ms, respectively. With the aid of two-frequency pulses to excite the 359 kHz and 714 kHz resonances in ruby simultaneously, it is possible to obtain a two-dimensional NQR spectrum. As a third example, the pulsed spectrometer is used to study NMR spectrum of 129Xe after polariza-tion with optically pumped Rb. The NMR line can be detected at frequencies as low as 200 Hz. At fields below about 2 mT the longitudinal relaxation time saturates at about 2000 s. Two recent experiments in other laboratories have extended these pulsed NMR techniques to higher temperatures and smaller samples. In the first, images were obtained of mineral oil floating on water at room temperature. In the second, a SQUID configured as a thin film gradiometer was used to detect NMR in a 50 microm particle of 195Pt at 6 mT and 4.2 K.