Geometrically-differential NMR in a stripline front-end

Pedro F Silva; Mazin Jouda; Jan G Korvink

doi:10.1016/j.jmr.2019.106659

Geometrically-differential NMR in a stripline front-end

J Magn Reson. 2020 Jan:310:106659. doi: 10.1016/j.jmr.2019.106659. Epub 2019 Nov 23.

Authors

Pedro F Silva¹, Mazin Jouda¹, Jan G Korvink²

Affiliations

¹ Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Microstructure Technology, Karlsruhe 76131, Germany.
² Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Institute of Microstructure Technology, Karlsruhe 76131, Germany. Electronic address: jan.korvink@kit.edu.

PMID: 31816584
DOI: 10.1016/j.jmr.2019.106659

Abstract

A major challenge facing the development of portable, low-cost NMR is the development of robust yet sensitive transceivers, for which several trade-offs in scalability, performance and complexity are usually necessary. Here we report on a stripline-based NMR detector that overcomes previous limitations. It features a sensitivity of 5.7×10^-4 TA^-1Ω^-0.5 over a sample volume of 10 mm × 10 mm × 3 mm, an exceptionally high B₁ homogeneity of A₄₅₀/A₉₀=98.4%, intrinsic electromagnetic shielding of 27 dB from environmental influences, and a total signal gain of 68 dB in the presence of a noise factor of 1.28, without any exterior shielding. The new dual-coil arrangement offers a downscalable geometry optimised for gap magnets, and it is voltage-tunable and plug-in compatible with commercial software-defined radio spectrometer boards. Exceptionally, it features both common-mode and novel differential-mode NMR measurement abilities.

Keywords: Differential NMR measurement; Gap magnet suitability; Stripline detector.