Research

At CORREL, we will establish expertise enabling simultaneous NMR and XRI measurements for a wide range of materials and processes, with technical and/or biological relevance. Nuclear Magnetic Resonance is a non-invasive, non-destructive technique capable of determining, with atomic resolution, the structure of molecules and materials in the solid, liquid, gas, or solution state. X-ray imaging reveals the inner structure of samples opaque for visible light with sub micrometer resolution. It enables the acquisition of spectral information about the absorption contrast, the phase and the stray properties of the sample. Therefore, the two methods combined at the same time and location, will allow exploring multiple axis in the dimension space for dynamic (i.e., time evolving) processes and in this way will enable acquisition of orthogonal information about the sample under study.

The potential for time-resolved multi contrast X-ray imaging is illustrated in the movie of the laser ablation process (silver wire immersed in water) with X-ray transmission and differential phase contrast in horizontal and vertical directions (collaboration with KIT-IPS/KARA)

Differential phase contrast imaging of the laser ablation process of a silver wire immersed in water

The potential for real time NMR monitoring of a bio-chemical process is illustrated below for the specific case of a spatially segregated enzymatic reactions in multilayered hydrogel assemblies.