This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I Project will investigate a high temperature superconducting technology for use in NMR inserts. The advantage of the high temperature superconductor for this application is the possibility of achieving substantially greater fields, rather than the operation at temperatures substantially higher than 4 K This technology will be implemented in Phase II and Phase III to build and qualify such an instrument for research applications. The proposed research evaluates existing bulk superconductor tubes as inserts for NMR. The technology has been proven and we have tested a l T insert in a 20 T background. This proposal addresses the issues of resulting field homogeneity in order to be able to design a high field, high resolution NMR machine based upon the concept. The program will take advantage of the facilities at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahasee, Fla. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS: The proposed method may provide an inexpensive method of utilizing high temperature superconducting material for inserts in high-field NMR instruments. Additional, the technology could be used to upgrade present instruments.
