Micro-spectrometer for NMR: Analysis of small quantities in vitro

Abstract

This paper reports the design, fabrication and preliminary tests of planar microcoils associated with a micromachined channel in silicon. These microcoils are used as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) radio frequency detection coils. They allow in vitro NMR analysis of small quantities introduced into the microchannel. It is a real challenging task to develop microsystems for NMR spectrum extraction for smaller and smaller sample volumes. Moreover, it is advantageous that these microsystems could be integrated in a micro total analysing system (μ-TAS) as an analysing stage. In this paper the description, fabrication process and electrical characterization of planar microcoil receivers are described. Results obtained on NMR microspectroscopy experiments have been performed in water and ethanol, using a 500 μm × 500 μm planar microcoil tuned and matched at 85.13 MHz (proton frequency at 2 T). © 2004 IOP Publishing Ltd.