Ultralow field NMR spectrometer with an atomic magnetometer near room temperature.
We present a Cs atomic magnetometer with a sensitivity of 150fT/Hz(1/2) operating near room temperature. The nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signal of 125μL tap water was detected at an ultralow magnetic field down to 47nT, with the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the NMR signal approaching 50 after eight averages. Relaxivity experiments with a Gd(DTPA) contrast agent in zero field were performed, in order to show the magnetometer's ability to measure spin-lattice relaxation time with high accuracy. This demonstrates the feasibility of an ultralow field NMR spectrometer based on a Cs atomic magnetometer, which has a low working temperature, short data acquisition time and high sensitivity. This kind of NMR spectrometer has great potential in applications such as chemical analysis and magnetic relaxometry detection in ultralow or zero fields.
Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems, State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Center for Magnetic Resonance, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
Guobin
G
Liu
Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems, State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Center for Magnetic Resonance, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
Xiaofeng
X
Li
Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems, State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Center for Magnetic Resonance, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
Xianping
X
Sun
Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems, State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Center for Magnetic Resonance, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
Jiwen
J
Feng
Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems, State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Center for Magnetic Resonance, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China.
Chaohui
C
Ye
Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems, State Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Atomic and Molecular Physics, Wuhan Center for Magnetic Resonance, Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430071, China. Electronic address: xinzhou@wipm.ac.cn.
Xin
X
Zhou
Atomic magnetometer; Fast sampling; Near room temperature; Ultralow field NMR