Quantum Technologies for Nuclear Magnetic Resonance at the Nanoscale

核磁共振（NMR）使用核自旋作为分子内部磁环境的原子尺度探针，以获得具有无与伦比特异性的结构信息。这使得核磁共振技术在生物学，化学，医学和物理学中具有重要意义。然而，目前的NMR技术受到物理限制，导致相对较差的灵敏度，因此对最小可检测样品尺寸的严格限制，阻止其扩展到亚微米尺度。拟议的项目将利用量子技术克服这些限制，并根据钻石中的色心理论开发NMR协议，该协议将（i）新的相干控制和检测方案以及钻石混合系统结合起来，以提高鲁棒性和灵敏度，（ii）液体溶液中核的超极化方法，以增加NMR信号，以及（iii）应用先进的信号处理技术，从噪声和采样不足的信号中最佳地提取信息。这些概念的结合形成了在从微米到纳米级的其他难以达到的长度尺度上实现高分辨率NMR的必要基础。其应用包括在芯片大小的核磁共振装置上进行分子指纹分析，研究表面化学和催化作用，以及在体内和体外检测单个蛋白质的结构和动力学。

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.