NMR down to Earth

摘要

High-precision nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy generally requires the use of powerful magnets. But using Earth's magnetic field allows us to gain some of the same information on the cheap. Are expensive superconducting magnets necessary to perform high-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy? Not absolutely, say Stephan Appelt and his colleagues in the February issue of Nature Physics. They use a far less pricey source of magnetism — Earths own magnetic field — to distinguish the chemical structures of various molecules containing hydrogen, lithium and fluorine. The level of accuracy they achieve is an order of magnitude better than that possible with the most advanced superconducting magnets.