A single-chip integrated transceiver for high field NMR magnetometry.

Area of Science:

• Physics
• Engineering
• Materials Science

Background:

• Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) magnetometry requires sensitive and precise measurement of magnetic fields.
• Conventional NMR systems often rely on discrete electronic components, which can be bulky and complex.
• Miniaturization of NMR electronics is crucial for developing portable and high-throughput sensing applications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and evaluate a broad-band, single-chip integrated transceiver for NMR magnetometry.
• To demonstrate the performance of the integrated transceiver in measuring magnetic fields with various sample types and volumes.
• To compare the achieved magnetic field measurement precision with theoretical limits.

Main Methods:

• Fabrication of a single-chip transceiver using standard silicon complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) technology.
• Integration of key RF components including amplifiers, a transmit/receive switch, and a quadrature mixer on a 1.8 mm² chip.
• Magnetic field measurements using the transceiver at 1.4 T and 7.05 T with liquid and solid samples ranging from 40 μl to 100 pl.

Main Results:

• Successful integration of RF transmit amplifier, transmit/receive switch, low noise RF receive amplifier, quadrature (IQ)-mixer, and IF amplifiers on a single chip.
• Achieved a magnetic field standard deviation of 2.5 nT (0.5 ppb) in 1 second averaging time at 7.05 T using 40 μl of distilled water.
• Demonstrated performance close to the Cramer-Rao lower bound, with a projected bound of 8 pT (1.1 ppt).

Conclusions:

• The developed single-chip transceiver offers a compact and efficient solution for NMR magnetometry.
• The integrated approach provides advantages over conventional discrete electronic systems in terms of size and potentially cost.
• The demonstrated sensitivity and precision pave the way for advanced NMR sensing applications with reduced sample requirements.