Radiation damping in microcoil NMR probes

Radiation damping arises from the field induced in the receiver coil by large bulk magnetization and tends to selectively drive this magnetization back to equilibrium much faster than relaxation processes. The demand for increased sensitivity in mass-limited samples has led to the development of microcoil NMR probes that are capable of obtaining high quality NMR spectra with small sample volumes (nL-μL). Microcoil probes are optimized to increase sensitivity by increasing either the sample-to-coil ratio (filling factor) of the probe or quality factor of the detection coil. Though radiation damping effects have been studied in standard NMR probes, these effects have not been measured in the microcoil probes. Here a systematic evaluation of radiation damping effects in a microcoil NMR probe is presented and the results are compared with similar measurements in conventional large volume samples. These results show that radiation-damping effects in microcoil probe is much more pronounced than in 5 mm probes, and that it is critically important to optimize NMR experiments to minimize these effects. As microcoil probes provide better control of the bulk magnetization, with good RF and B0 inhomogeneity, in addition to negligible dipolar field effects due to nearly spherical sample volumes, these probes can be used exclusively to study the complex behavior of radiation damping.