European Network on NMR Relaxometry

In September 2015 I started to work within the EU-funded FET-open project CONQUER as responsible for Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance (NQR)-spectroscopy. The project is about a new approach in developing MRI contrast agents which takes advantage of relaxation enhancement via magnetization transfer to extrinsic quadrupolar nuclei in close neighbourhood to the water protons. Our focus lies on different Bismuth containing aryl compounds, where I am interested in measuring their relevant NQR properties at body temperature as well as their relaxation properties T1 and T2. The data should support quantum mechanical simulation of the enhancement effect which is for example dependent on the NQR transition frequencies. Besides this experimental work I am busy with developing a relaxation model for solid state high spin systems based on Redfield’s theory to gain insight into molecule dynamics of crystalline powders. The theory shall than be tested against experiments using compounds containing e.g. Sb121 Sb123 or Bi207 isotopes.