Today’s nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and Magnetic
Resonance Imaging (MRI) technologies, like quantum information processing and
nuclear spintronic technologies, are based on an intrinsic quantum property of
electrons and atomic nuclei called “spin.” Electrons and nuclei can act like
tiny bar magnets with a spin that is assigned a directional state of either
“up” or “down.” NMR/MRI signals depend upon a majority of nuclear spins being
polarized to point in one direction. The greater the polarization, the stronger
the signal. Researchers with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Lawrence
Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have reported on a technique for
hyperpolarizing carbon-13 nuclear spins in diamond that enhances the
sensitivity of NMR/MRI by many orders of magnitude above what is ordinarily
possible with conventional NMR magnets at room temperature.