Modular, IC-based arrays for broadband NMR-based metabolite screeening

• Applicants: Professor Dr. Jens Anders; Professor Dr. Jan Gerrit Korvink
• Subject Area: Microsystems ; Electronic Semiconductors, Components and Circuits, Integrated Systems, Sensor Technology, Theoretical Electrical Engineering
• Term: from 2018 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 389084717

The long term vision of screeMR is to perform the necessary research to be able to remove the instrumentation related limitations of MR based metabolite screening, which will allow researchers in the field to fully benefit from the intrinsic advantages of MR spectroscopy over competing methods, including its unmatched specificity and complete noninvasiveness.To proceed towards our long term vision, screeMR will tackle the key limitations of existing MR screening hardware by utilizing advanced cleanroom manufacturing techniques in combination with integrated circuit technologies. This approach will allow us to research new modular concepts for large-scale MR coil arrays with significant advantages compared to state-of-the-art systems. To achieve modularity, a thorough theoretical investigation of small sets of coupled MR detectors will be carried out, especially with respect to the preconditions of all MR experiments, namely sensitivity and spectral linewidth, in order to identify suitable concepts for modular building blocks of even larger MR detector arrays.Based on these theoretical considerations we will combine advanced, very scalable cleanroom manufacturing processes and nanometer-scaled IC technologies, to achieve functional hardware prototypes of the most promising modular building block candidates. The use of custom-designed ASICs will be one of the key enablers for the envisioned modular MR platform because, apart from the fact that it provides the required electrical performance at a suitable form factor and power consumption, it provides probably the only solution which can operate inside the high magnetic field strengths >10 T of NMR spectrometers with very small chip-to-coil-distances, which are required for a broadband operation without problems associated with reflections on long cable interconnects.Overall, through theoretical investigations and subsequent miniaturized and scalable hardware implementations, which make consequent use of cleanroom manufacturing and integrated circuit technologies, the proposed project will pave the way towards future MR based reliable, high-throughput, high-sensitivity, nondestructive and noninvasive metabolomic studies of biological systems. Therefore, on a medium time-scale, by largely speeding up the throughput of MR-based analytics while preserving its unmatched specificity, the findings of the proposed project aim to completely remove the need for current expensive hyphenated screening methods, which are presenting the state-of-the-art today. With this achieved, the reduced complexity and cost associated with screening experiments will make it an attractive solution for a much larger range of applications than is imaginable today.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Major Instrumentation: Hochgeschwindigkeits-Lockin-Verstärker
• Instrumentation Group: 6110 Selektive Verstärker, Lock-in-Verstärker