What are the components of an NMR spectrometers and how does each component work?
1 Answer
Magnet, rf coil, electronics interface, computer
Explanation:
The magnet may be a cryogenically-cooled superconducting electromagnet or a powerful permanent magnet - either way its job is to align the spins of the nuclei in the sample.
The rf coil is wrapped around the sample. A pulse of radio-frequency energy is sent through the coil which excites the nuclei in the sample, changing the spin orientation away from alignment with the magnetic field.
When the rf pulse is finished, the coil becomes a detector. The spins of the nuclei relax, returning to alignment with the magnetic field and releasing rf energy as they do so which is picked up by the rf coil and amplified by the electronics, digitised and passed to the computer.
The computer analyses the rf signal from the sample to produce the NMR spectrum that we can then interpret to analyse the sample.
