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Magic Angle Spinning Spheres And Improved Microwave Coupling For Magnetic Resonance, Pin-Hui Chen

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a nondestructive technique used to characterize molecular structure and dynamics with atomic resolution. In solid-state NMR, magic angle spinning (MAS) is commonly implemented to improve spectral resolution by partially averaging anisotropic interactions. To further improve NMR sensitivity, dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) is utilized to transfer the polarization from electron spins to nuclei of interest using microwaves. Advanced MAS DNP NMR instrumentation, such as spherical rotors for stable and fast spinning, dielectric lenses to effectively couple the microwaves into the sample, and the separation of receiving and transmitting circuits to decrease measurement noise, are developed to …