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| Optical Pumping setup at the CMX 400. |
Our research interests are focused on the chemistry of surfaces and the study of advanced materials, primarily through the use of new high sensitivity and high resolution solid-state NMR techniques. NMR methods are enormously useful for determining the structure of bulk materials. Surface species, however, are typically outnumbered 99 to 1 or more by bulk atoms, and thus NMR's capabilities in characterizing surface chemistry are restricted to high surface area materials. New laser-based methods have been shown to create enormous enhancements (over 30,000 times or more) in the NMR signal of xenon atoms, whose polarization can be transferred to surface nuclei to selectively enhance the surface signal. We have been able to further enhance the xenon atoms by re-introducing the polarized xenon back into the polarization cell and not only increasing the overall available polarization of the xenon, but also conserving the xenon gas.[
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