Dynamic Nuclear Polarization: Advances in Hardware and Molecular Design of Polarizing Agents

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a versatile technique relying on spin-bearing nuclei. Since its discovery more than 60 years ago, NMR and related techniques have become indispensable tools with innumerable applications in physics, chemistry, biology and medicine. One of the main obstacles in NMR is its notorious lack of sensitivity, which is due to the minuscule energy splitting of the nuclear spins at room temperature. Appropriately, the inherent low polarization allows for a theoretical sensitivity enhancement of more than 10,000. The NMR signal enhancement of protons which can be achieved by means of Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) is approximately 660. In this book, different hardware aspects and polarizing agents for DNP were studied. The results show the potential of DNP, especially at a magnetic field of B=0.35 T, when it comes to the polarization of nuclei with a very low magnetogyric ratio which should result in many new applications. These presented components and designs could be the foundation to open up the application of a mobile DNP polarizer for medical applications.

Björn Dollmann studied physics at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. Subsequent to his graduation he did his PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz in the group of Professor H.-W. Spiess.