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Ultrahigh-Resolution Magnetic Resonance in Inhomogeneous Magnetic Fields: Two-Dimensional Long-Lived-Coherence Correlation Spectroscopy

Srinivas Chinthalapalli, Aurélien Bornet, Takuya F. Segawa, Riddhiman Sarkar, Sami Jannin, and Geoffrey Bodenhausen
Phys. Rev. Lett. 109, 047602 – Published 26 July 2012
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Abstract

A half-century quest for improving resolution in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) has enabled the study of molecular structures, biological interactions, and fine details of anatomy. This progress largely relied on the advent of sophisticated superconducting magnets that can provide stable and homogeneous fields with temporal and spatial variations below ΔB0/B0<0.01ppm. In many cases however, inherent properties of the objects under investigation, pulsating arteries, breathing lungs, tissue-air interfaces, surgical implants, etc., lead to fluctuations and losses of local homogeneity. A new method dubbed “long-lived-coherence correlation spectroscopy” (LLC-COSY) opens the way to overcome both inhomogeneous and homogeneous broadening, which arise from local variations in static fields and fluctuating dipole-dipole interactions, respectively. LLC-COSY makes it possible to obtain ultrahigh resolution two-dimensional spectra, with linewidths on the order of Δν=0.1 to 1 Hz, even in very inhomogeneous fields (ΔB0/B0>10ppm or 5000 Hz at 9.7 T), and can improve resolution by a factor up to 9 when the homogeneous linewidths are determined by dipole-dipole interactions. The resulting LLC-COSY spectra display chemical shift differences and scalar couplings in two orthogonal dimensions, like in “J spectroscopy.” LLC-COSY does not require any sophisticated gradient switching or frequency-modulated pulses. Applications to in-cell NMR and to magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) of selected volume elements in MRI appear promising, particularly when susceptibility variations tend to preclude high resolution.

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  • Received 2 April 2012

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.109.047602

© 2012 American Physical Society

Synopsis

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Breathe In, Breathe Out

Published 26 July 2012

Advances in magnetic resonance spectroscopy could remedy the problems caused by movement or unstable fields during a scan.

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Authors & Affiliations

Srinivas Chinthalapalli1, Aurélien Bornet2, Takuya F. Segawa2, Riddhiman Sarkar3, Sami Jannin2,*, and Geoffrey Bodenhausen2,4,5,6

  • 1Department of Chemistry, Indian Institute of Technology, 110 016 New Delhi, India
  • 2Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
  • 3Departement Chemie, Technische Universität München, Lichtenbergstraße 4, D-85747 Garching, Germany
  • 4Département de Chimie, Ecole Normale Supérieure, 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris cedex 05, France
  • 5Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 75005 Paris, France
  • 6UMR 7203, CNRS/UPMC/ENS, 75005 Paris, France

  • *sami.jannin@epfl.ch

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Issue

Vol. 109, Iss. 4 — 27 July 2012

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