Maximizing NMR Sensitivity: A Guide to Receiver Gain Adjustment

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Main Authors: Peters, Josh P., Sönnichsen, Frank D., Hövener, Jan-Bernd, Pravdivtsev, Andrey N.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Peters, Josh P.
Sönnichsen, Frank D.
Hövener, Jan-Bernd
Pravdivtsev, Andrey N.
author_facet Peters, Josh P.
Sönnichsen, Frank D.
Hövener, Jan-Bernd
Pravdivtsev, Andrey N.
contents Novel methods and technology drive the rapid advances of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The primary objective of developing novel hardware is to improve sensitivity and reliability (and possibly to reduce cost). Automation has made NMR much more convenient, but it may lead to trusting the algorithms without regular checks. In this contribution, we analyzed the signal and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as a function of the receiver gain (RG) for 1H, 2H, 13C, and 15N nuclei on five spectrometers. On a 1 T benchtop spectrometer (Spinsolve, Magritek), the SNR showed the expected increase as a function of RG. Still, the 1H and 13C signal amplitudes deviated by up to 50% from supposedly RG-independent signal intensities. On 7, 9.4, 11.7, and 14.1 T spectrometers (Avance Neo, Bruker), the signal intensity increases linearly with RG as expected, but surprisingly a drastic drop of SNR is observed for some X-nuclei and fields. For example, while RG = 18 provided a 13C SNR similar to that at a maximum RG of 101 at 9.4 T, at RG = 20.2 the determined SNR was 32% lower. The SNR figures are strongly system and resonance frequency dependent. Our findings suggest that NMR users should test the specific spectrometer behavior to obtain optimum SNR for their experiments, as automatic RG adjustment does not account for the observed characteristics. In addition, we provide a method to estimate optimal settings for thermally and hyperpolarized samples of a chosen concentration, polarization, and flip angle, which provide a high SNR and avoid ADC-overflow artefacts.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_16411
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Maximizing NMR Sensitivity: A Guide to Receiver Gain Adjustment
Peters, Josh P.
Sönnichsen, Frank D.
Hövener, Jan-Bernd
Pravdivtsev, Andrey N.
Instrumentation and Detectors
Chemical Physics
Novel methods and technology drive the rapid advances of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The primary objective of developing novel hardware is to improve sensitivity and reliability (and possibly to reduce cost). Automation has made NMR much more convenient, but it may lead to trusting the algorithms without regular checks. In this contribution, we analyzed the signal and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as a function of the receiver gain (RG) for 1H, 2H, 13C, and 15N nuclei on five spectrometers. On a 1 T benchtop spectrometer (Spinsolve, Magritek), the SNR showed the expected increase as a function of RG. Still, the 1H and 13C signal amplitudes deviated by up to 50% from supposedly RG-independent signal intensities. On 7, 9.4, 11.7, and 14.1 T spectrometers (Avance Neo, Bruker), the signal intensity increases linearly with RG as expected, but surprisingly a drastic drop of SNR is observed for some X-nuclei and fields. For example, while RG = 18 provided a 13C SNR similar to that at a maximum RG of 101 at 9.4 T, at RG = 20.2 the determined SNR was 32% lower. The SNR figures are strongly system and resonance frequency dependent. Our findings suggest that NMR users should test the specific spectrometer behavior to obtain optimum SNR for their experiments, as automatic RG adjustment does not account for the observed characteristics. In addition, we provide a method to estimate optimal settings for thermally and hyperpolarized samples of a chosen concentration, polarization, and flip angle, which provide a high SNR and avoid ADC-overflow artefacts.
title Maximizing NMR Sensitivity: A Guide to Receiver Gain Adjustment
topic Instrumentation and Detectors
Chemical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.16411