Abstract
Long-lived nuclear spin states could greatly enhance the applicability of hyperpolarized nuclear magnetic resonance. Using singlet states between inequivalent spin pairs has been shown to extend the signal lifetime by more than an order of magnitude compared to the spin lattice relaxation time (T1), but they have to be prevented from evolving into other states. In the most interesting case the singlet is between chemically equivalent spins, as it can then be inherently an eigenstate. However this presents major challenges in the conversion from bulk magnetization to singlet. In the only case demonstrated so far, a reversible chemical reaction to break symmetry was required. Here we present a pulse sequence technique that interconverts between singlet spin order and bulk magnetization without breaking the symmetry of the spin system. This technique is independent of field strength and is applicable to a broad range of molecules.
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Acknowledgements
This work is funded by the National Science Foundation (grant CHE-1058727) and the NIH Training in Medical Imaging T32EB001040. We are indebted to I. Kuprov for stimulating discussions and help with the SPINACH simulation package. We thank T. Theis for stimulating discussions on DEO and constructive comments on the manuscript. We also acknowledge the Duke University NMR centre for technical assistance.
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Y.F. designed research, carried out experiments, conducted theoretical simulations and wrote the paper. R.M.D. conducted the hyperpolarized MSM experiment and edited the manuscript. W.S.W. designed research and wrote the paper.
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Feng, Y., Davis, R. & Warren, W. Accessing long-lived nuclear singlet states between chemically equivalent spins without breaking symmetry. Nature Phys 8, 831–837 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2425
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphys2425
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