Optical Pumping Setups

The principle of these experiments is to transfer the polarization of the photons to the nuclear magnetic moments. The noble gases (129Xe, 3He, 83Kr) are thus hyperpolarized and allow a gain in NMR sensitivity of five orders of magnitude relative to the polarization in the highest magnetic fields used.

Main technical features

• Setup 1: Titanium laser: 5W sapphire pumped by a 25W green laser. Production of 2 mL in 15 minutes with a polarization of 0.5 (to be compared to the thermal polarization of 0.00001 at 10 Tesla)
• Setup 2: Laser diodes 2 x 30 W. Production of 10 mL in 5 minutes with a polarization of 0.25. This assembly can be installed in a van to perform optical pumping near the area of use (pre-clinical imagers, high field spectrometers).