SBIR Phase I: Laser-enhanced Hypersensitive Bench-top NMR System

这个小型企业创新研究第一阶段项目建议开发一种光流控平台，用于需要增强检测灵敏度的核磁共振(核磁共振)应用。在美国，核磁共振占据了分子光谱学市场的最大份额，2013年的估计价值为7亿美元，2018年为10亿美元。这项工作将产生的紧凑、便携的系统将在现有的、新兴的或新的市场中找到应用，这些市场与跨越护理点诊断、生物防御、环境监测和食品安全的领域相连。这项技术还将为分析科学带来新的机会，特别是在需要高通量表征各种化学部分的研究中，就像制药业中经常进行的那样。此外，这项工作将通过开发先进和低成本的诊断工具，对改善医疗设施的努力产生积极影响。该项目的学术价值在于，它能够通过一个利用最近实验结果的强大、低成本的平台，绕过现有核自旋极化技术的多重限制。即将开发的技术引入了一种新的激光辅助方法，以增强目标流体中核自旋的分数对准，从而减少分析物的体积、获取时间以及整个核磁共振系统的成本和规模。建议的方法结合了流体和光子技术，以动态极化暴露在适当设计的固态基质中的流体。中心目标是设计所建议的装置，并使用模型目标流体对其性能进行初步表征；预期的极化水平约为0.1%至1%(即，比商业上可获得的磁体高出可能的数量级)。这些“超极化”流体可直接用于检查，或用作其他(例如，光敏)流体系统的后极化来源。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project proposes to develop an optofluidic platform for applications in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) that require enhanced detection sensitivity. In the US, NMR accounts for the largest share of the molecular spectroscopy market, with an estimated value of $700 million in 2013 and $1 billion in 2018. The compact, portable system that will result from this work will find applications in existing, emerging, or new markets connected to areas spanning point-of-care diagnostics, bio-defense, environmental monitoring, and food safety. This technology will also bring new opportunities to analytical science, particularly in studies that demand the high-throughput characterization of varied chemical moieties, as routinely carried out in the pharmaceutical industry. Further, this work will positively impact efforts to improve healthcare facilities through the development of advanced and low-cost diagnostic tools. The intellectual merit of this project lies in its ability to circumvent multiple limitations of existing nuclear spin polarization technologies through a robust, low-cost platform that leverages recent experimental findings. The technology to be developed introduces a new, laser-assisted route to enhancing the fractional alignment of nuclear spins in a target fluid, thus reducing the analyte's volume, the acquisition time, and the cost and size of the overall NMR system. The proposed approach articulates fluidics and photonic technologies to dynamically polarize fluids exposed to a properly engineered solid-state matrix. A central goal is to engineer the proposed device and conduct initial characterizations of its performance using model target fluids; the anticipated level of polarization is of the order 0.1% to 1% (i.e., orders of magnitude superior than that possible with commercially available magnets). These 'hyperpolarized' fluids can be used directly for inspection, or as a resource to post-polarize other (e.g., light-sensitive) fluidic systems.