Constructing Overhauser Dynamic Nuclear Polarization-Nuclear Magnetic Resonance System Using Benchtop Electron Paramagnetic Resonance Spectrometer

The Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) technique using Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) procedures is one of the promising techniques that enable overcoming low sensitivity problems in NMR spectroscopy. We constructed an ODNP-NMR system using a commercial benchtop EPR spectrometer. The H-1 NMR peak area of water in aqueous solutions of 4-hydroxy-TEMPO was enhanced more than 95 times in the ODNP-NMR experiments. Our signal enhancement results were about 55% of the previously reported result. This could be due to non-uniform microwave power over a sample and unwanted sample heating by microwave. However, this portable ODNP-NMR spectrometer will be eventually useful for site-specific detection with nano-scale spatial resolutions and molecular dynamics studies with significantly improved signal sensitivity.