State of Utah Center of Excellence for Biomedical Microfluidics
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| Students involved: James Stephenson TABLE TOP MICRO FLUIDIC NUCLEAR MAGNETIC RESONANCE SPECTROMETER Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a powerful method for determining chemical composition and structure as well as biological properties. NMR systems are typically very large and expensive due to the size of super-conducting magnets. This paper describes the development of a portable NMR spectrometer utilizing small permanent magnets, microscale probes and sample capillaries for microfluidic analysis of biological fluids (blood, urine, tears, amniotic fluid, saliva, etc.) and chemical agent sensing (homeland security). The underlying design and fabrication principles in downs scaling the technique will be described. The motivating factors for downscaling NMR include improvements in the signal to noise ratio, vastly smaller sample volume requirements, and reduced dependence on high performance magnets. This leads to increased sensitivity and portability, at a substantially lower cost. The key to miniaturization is in the use of a permanent magnet assembly built from high permeability Vanadium Permendur. This permanent magnet assembly has been shown to generate a variable field through a creative implementation of ferro-magnetic flux switches (3,000 – 23,000 Gauss). The development of a manufacturable process for the micro coil and capillary system is described. This process yields a micro coil/probe with a 100% fill-factor capability, which maximizes the signal level. |
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