Dynamic Nuclear Polarization to Enhance the Detection of Wet Interfaces and Interaction

Visualizing molecular interactions and materials interfaces, previously "invisible", fundamentally transform our ability to discover new solutions and ask new questions. I will present my group’s approach to teasing out and amplifying signals from nuclei and electrons, to use spins as reporters and to use many-spin coupled spin dynamics as filters and amplifier to detect chemical interfaces and molecular assembly that traditionally evade observations. Specifically, the study of local features at the nanometer and sub-nanometer scale is made possible using strategically placed electron spin probes, and through orders of magnitudes in NMR signal enhancements achieved by polarization transfer from electron spin probes to the surrounding nuclear spins, relying on processes broadly termed dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP). I will present novel concepts, tools and hardware that advance DNP-amplified nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and discuss its applications for the study of dynamics, structure and thermodynamics of interfacial water at biomolecular and materials surfaces, and of emerging molecular assemblies in aqueous solutions.

Speaker: Songi Han, UC Santa Barbara