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Updated: Jul 22, 2025

Hyperpolarized Xenon for NMR and MRI Applications
Published on: September 6, 2012
Dramatic improvement in the "Bulk" hyperpolarization of 131Xe via spin exchange optical pumping probed using in situ
Michael J Molway1, Liana Bales-Shaffer1, Kaili Ranta1
1School of Chemical and Biomolecular Sciences, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale 62901, IL, USA.
Abstract:
We report on hyperpolarization of quadrupolar (I=3/2) 131Xe via spin-exchange optical pumping. Observations of the 131Xe polarization dynamics via in situ low-field NMR show that the estimated alkali-metal/131Xe spin-exchange rates can be large enough to compete with 131Xe spin relaxation. 131Xe polarization up to 7.6±1.5% was achieved in ∼8.5×1020 spins-a ∼100-fold improvement in the total spin angular momentum-potentially enabling various applications, including: measurement of spin-dependent neutron-131Xe s-wave scattering; sensitive searches for time-reversal violation in neutron-131Xe interactions beyond the Standard Model; and surface-sensitive pulmonary MRI.
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