Topical Developments in High-Field Dynamic Nuclear Polarization

Abstract

We report our recent efforts directed at improving high-field dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) experiments. We investigated a series of thiourea nitroxide radicals and the associated DNP enhancements ranging from ε=25 to 82, which demonstrate the impact of molecular structure on performance. We directly polarized low-gamma nuclei, including [superscript 13]C, [superscript 2]H, and [superscript 17]O, by the cross effect mechanism using trityl radicals as a polarization agent. We discuss a variety of sample preparation techniques for DNP with emphasis on the benefits of methods that do not use a glass-forming cryoprotecting matrix. Lastly, we describe a corrugated waveguide for use in a 700 MHz/460 GHz DNP system that improves microwave delivery and increases enhancements up to 50%.