Quantum Technologies for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance at the Nanoscale

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Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) uses nuclear spins as atomic scale probes of their magnetic environment inside a molecule to obtain structural information with unmatched specificity. This makes NMR a technique of major importance in biology, chemistry, medicine and physics. How- ever, current NMR technology is subject to physical limitations that lead to relatively poor sensi- tivities and hence stringent limits on the smallest detectable sample size that prevent its extension to the submicron scale. The proposed project will use quantum technologies for overcoming these limitations with the theoretical development of NMR protocols based on colour centres in diamond that combine (i) new coherent control and detection schemes as well as diamond hybrid systems to increase robustness and sensitivity with (ii) methods for the hyperpolarisation of nuclei in liquid solution to increase the NMR signal and (iii) the application of advanced signal processing tech- niques for the optimal extraction of information from noisy and undersampled signals. The com- bination of these concepts forms the essential basis for the realisation of high resolution NMR on otherwise inaccessible length scales ranging from the micron to the nanoscale. Applications in- clude molecular fingerprinting on chip-sized NMR devices, the study of surface chemistry and catalysis and the detection of structure and dynamics of single proteins in vivo and in vitro.