This project proposes the construction of a powerful, variable-field nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectrometer (range from 0 to 2 Tesla) for the investigation of relaxation and molecular dynamics in a broad range of materials, including liquid crystals, phospholipid membranes, and polymers, as well as bonding structure in bioinorganic compounds. Field-cycling NMR (FC-NMR) is an innovative and rather new technique and such FC-NMR spectrometers are not commercially available. The major application of the FC-NMR spectrometer will be to obtain novel information on the relaxation properties of IH, 2H, l9F, and 31P nuclei in the solid and liquid-crystalline states of various materials at low to intermediate magnetic fields strengths (0 to 2 Tesla), where measurements using standard NMR methods are difficult or impossible. The relaxation mechanisms will yield new information regarding the dynamics of the molecules in the various materials to be studied. Knowledge of the relaxation in the low magnetic field (low frequency) region is essential to obtain any comprehensive understanding of the molecular properties in solids, liquid crystals, and membranes. The FC-NMR spectrometer will also be used to obtain information regarding the charge distribution around quadrupolar nuclei, such as 2H, 14N, 17O, and 59Co in bioinorganic substances, which is essential to achieve a detailed understanding of their reaction chemistry and their role in enzyme mechanisms.
