Dipolar order mediated ¹H → ¹³C cross-polarization for dissolution-dynamic nuclear polarization

Abstract

Magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy often suffer from a low intrinsic sensitivity, which can in some cases be circumvented by the use of hyperpolarization techniques. Dissolution-dynamic nuclear polarization offers a way of hyperpolarizing 13C spins in small molecules, enhancing their sensitivity by up to 4 orders of magnitude. This is usually performed by direct 13C polarization, which is straightforward but often takes more than an hour. Alternatively, indirect 1H polarization followed by 1H→13C polarization transfer can be implemented, which is more efficient and faster but is technically very challenging and hardly implemented in practice. Here we propose to remove the main roadblocks of the 1H→13C polarization transfer process by using alternative schemes with the following: (i) less rf (radiofrequency) power; (ii) less overall rf energy; (iii) simple rf-pulse shapes; and (iv) no synchronized 1H and 13C rf irradiation. An experimental demonstration of such a simple 1H→13C polarization transfer technique is presented for the case of [1-13C]sodium acetate, and is compared with the most sophisticated cross-polarization schemes. A polarization transfer efficiency of ∼0.43 with respect to cross-polarization was realized, which resulted in a 13C polarization of ∼8.7 % after ∼10 min of microwave irradiation and a single polarization transfer step.