Project Grant 2203681

Professor Ramanathan's group at Dartmouth College was awarded a $772,936 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Mathematical and Physical Sciences program to develop methods for improving the sensitivity of nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. The group will work to enhance dynamic nuclear polarization signals through the use of substitutional nitrogen impurity centers in diamond, with the goals of enabling NMR studies of smaller sample volumes at the nano and microscale. Specifically, the group aims to identify sample characteristics and experimental conditions that produce the largest dynamic nuclear polarization enhancements, further improve enhancements by hyperpolarizing nitrogen impurity spin centers via optical excitation of nitrogen-vacancy centers, and investigate using nitrogen centers in diamond to enhance NMR signals from nuclei outside the diamond material. The award will support the training of undergraduate and graduate students and the development of an outreach laboratory to demonstrate fundamental quantum phenomena to K-12 students. The research contributes broadly to advancing methods for magnetic resonance at the mesoscale.