A radically different approach to detecting the way atoms resonate in a magnetic field could improve the sensitivity of NMR spectroscopy, according to US scientists.
Conventional liquid and solid relies on detecting the net dipolar magnetic field outside a spin-polarised sample, explain Michael Romalis and colleagues at Princeton University, New Jersey. However, this only offers the NMR spectroscopist limited structural and spatial information. As such NMR has been extended with elaborate techniques involving magnetic field gradients and spin correlations. Using a laser beam, which is by definition a polarised light source has provided a new avenue of research – optical NMR. However, until now, this has been limited to quantum dots and other specialists materials. Romalis and his colleagues hoped to extend optical NMR to a much wider field of research.
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