Professor Navin Khaneja and his group at Harvard University are supported by the Analytical and Surface Chemistry Program in the Division of Chemistry for a collaboration with Professor Steffen Glaser at the Technical University of Munich to develop novel methods for high resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy in inhomogeneous static and radio-frequency fields. The work employs novel radio-frequency pulse sequences and gradient waveform designs to enable high resolution NMR in mobile and ex-situ NMR applications in materials science, chemical engineering, and geosciences. Systematic use of methods of control theory can generate pulse sequence designs that are significantly shorter than those accessible by conventional methods but offer comparable compensation performance. These optimal designs help to minimize relaxation losses that are always present and thereby improve the sensitivity.
This international collaboration (with the German portion supported by the German Science Foundation - DFG) provides students and postdocs with exceptional opportunities to pair theoretical and experimental concepts of NMR, plus broad experience in international collaboration. The methods developed in this work are expected to be broadly applicable to other coherent spectroscopies and areas of quantum information science and coherent control.
