Multi-User Equipment approved in grant 2013/07793-6: Solid-State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance spectrometer

Abstract

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) is a fundamental technique to develop research in Materials Sciences. NMR can probe structure and dynamics in atomic and molecular scale, even in solids without structural periodicity such as amorphous materials and glasses. For these reasons, NMR has a special role in the research lines of the Center for Research, Technology and Education in Vitreous Materials (CERTEV, program CEPID-FAPESP). The NMR instrumentation participating of CERTEV is based in the NMR Laboratory of the Instituto de Física de São Carlos (IFSC-USP). One of the core instruments for the project is the Varian Unity INOVA spectrometer operating with a wide-bore superconducting magnet of 9.4T, where all the 29Si-NMR experiments in silicate glasses and the 7Li studies with variable temperature are carried out. This spectrometer started operations in 1997, acting in practice as a multi-user laboratory serving a broad research community acting in fields of Physics, Chemistry and Material Sciences, with the support of the research team in the NMR Laboratory. After 22 years of operation the instrument is at the end of its lifetime, leaving the community of users and the CERTEV in a vulnerable situation. In this proposal we ask for an upgrade of the NMR spectrometer console, in order to warrant the continuity of the operation and also to allow the implementation of the state of the art in NMR techniques, which are currently beyond the capacity of the analog console. With the new three channel digital console, we will be able to perform double-resonance experiments in X-1H and X-Y bands such as multinuclear REDOR, HETCOR or INADEQUATE in the solid state. The upgraded instrument will be officially offered to the scientific and technological community as a FAPESP multi-user facility, hosted in one of the groups with the highest degree of expertise in solid-state NMR in Brasil. (AU)