Last year, researchers at the University of Wisconsin’s National Magnetic Resonance Facility at Madison (NMRFAM) gained a high-powered, superconducting, 1.1 gigahertz (GHz) magnet. The magnet is available for researchers on and off campus to collect data using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).
Chad Rienstra, co-director of NMRFAM and professor in the UW–Madison Department of Biochemistry, and NMRFAM scientist Songlin Wang saw an opportunity to further optimize data collected using the 1.1 GHz magnet. Now, the NMRFAM team has developed technology and methodology to further optimize data collected using the 1.1 GHz magnet. Their work was published this month in Science Advances.
“At NMRFAM, we’re now doing research on samples that would not be possible without high-field magnets. Even though the data we were getting is still higher quality compared to lower field magnets, we were only able to harness 80% of the magnet’s potential,” says Wang. “Now, with this new probe [a type of sensor], we can unlock more of the magnet’s capability.”
NMR uses strong magnets to map the orientation of nuclei in molecules, yielding data that can be used to identify molecular structures and study the movement and interactions among molecules. The 1.1 GHz magnet allows researchers to use NMR with smaller sample quantities and acquire data up to 30 times faster than lower field magnets. This opens the door for research on compounds that are too large, too dynamic, or degrade too quickly to be studied using lower magnetic fields.
With this powerful new technology comes added challenges. The 1.1 GHz magnet is especially sensitive to even minor temperature fluctuations, and the magnetic field tends to move as time passes. These and other changes can contribute to background noise in acquired data.
The NMRFAM team, alongside industry scientists, designed a new NMR probe to use with the 1.1 GHz magnet. The probe comes with a “lock” (a separate circuit that tracks the magnetic field with a standardized sample). Researchers can use data acquired from the lock to compute the magnetic shift and remove noise, resulting in better information about molecules of interest in the research sample.
This work, Rienstra says, is part of the mission of NMRFAM. “On the one hand, we support scientists by making the world-class technology we have here available to them. On the other hand, we support scientists by developing technology to build things like better probes and better computer programs to process data,” says Rienstra, emphasizing that the purpose of this work is to further the possibilities for scientific exploration. “The technology alone isn’t sufficient. We make sure that it’s available to our user community of scientists from across campus and the country, and even international researchers.”
Written by Renata Solan.