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

这个小企业创新研究第一阶段项目提议开发一种光流体平台，用于需要增强检测灵敏度的核磁共振（NMR）应用。在美国，NMR占据了分子光谱市场的最大份额，2013年估计价值为7亿美元，2018年为10亿美元。这项工作将产生的紧凑、便携式系统将在现有、新兴或新的市场中找到应用，这些市场与医疗点诊断、生物防御、环境监测和食品安全等领域相关。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成分的研究中，正如制药工业中常规进行的那样。此外，这项工作将通过开发先进和低成本的诊断工具，对改善医疗保健设施的努力产生积极影响。这个项目的智力价值在于它能够通过一个强大的、低成本的平台，利用最近的实验发现，规避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路线，以增强目标流体中核自旋的分数排列，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尺寸。提出的方法阐明了流体和光子技术，以动态极化流体暴露在一个适当的工程固体基质。中心目标是设计提议的设备，并使用模型目标流体对其性能进行初步表征；预期的极化水平为0.1%至1%（即，比市售磁体可能的数量级高）。这些“超极化”流体可直接用于检测，或作为其他（如光敏）流体系统后极化的资源。

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.