Solid State NMR Facility

The Caltech Solid State Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Facility (CSNF) was established in Fall of 1998 in the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Caltech in order to fulfill the demand of studies of advanced solid materials using solid NMR spectroscopy. The facility is equipped with three solid NMR spectrometers, Avance 200, AM 300, and Avance 500 with a variety of both liquid and solid NMR probes, so that most state-of-the-art NMR measurements can be readily achieved. Some examples of solid NMR applications are described in detail below. Any groups or research laboratories who wish to use this facility are welcome to visit the laboratory which resides at the sub-basement of Sherman Fairchild Library (011 SFL) and get in touch with the director, or electronically request information about setting up a schedule by sending an e-mail to the director.

Facility Access

In order to comply with division guidelines for safely reopening facilities, please observe the updated instructions on how to access the Solid State NMR Facility.

Because of the nature of solid state NMR experiments that often require long signal averaging, users need to spend minimal amount of time to setup experiments and leave the facility room, and come back later to collect samples and do appropriate clean-ups. The shift among users in the facility room will be tightly controlled by the manager to allow only one user access at a time. All check-in/out process should be recorded on a logbook on the front entrance door.

A. Individual access for trained users:

Any trained users can access the facility space and operate spectrometers to collect NMR data upon receiving email approval from the manager (email: sonjong@cheme.caltech.edu). The approval e-mail should include the schedule (date, time, expected duration of use) and requirements that users need to abide by during the operation. Users are required to agree to follow the safety procedure before stepping in to the facility.
Movement by a user in the facility room is limited to around the spectrometer computer desk, magnet for sample loading, sample packing bench, spectrometer console if necessary, and data transfer computer station.
Upon completion of data acquisition, the user is responsible to transfer data immediately to user's own computer network for further processing at user's own research lab. space or at home. Extending the stay in the facility room for the purpose of data processing is not recommended/strongly discouraged.
Any new user or even the trained users are welcomed and strongly recommended to receive solid state NMR service simply by submitting samples to the facility manager during this time of restriction. Small labor fee will be added to the spectrometer user charge for this operation. Remote teleconferencing can be done for specific experimental guideline. A sample drop-off box will be available by the facility entrance door. For any questions or suggestions, feel free to email the manager.

B. New user training (Not allowed until further notice)

For those who want to get trained for spectrometer operations, the following steps will be used.

User training will be performed by the facility manager only one new user at a time.
Prior to in person training, new user is requested to complete review of instruction materials which will be delivered via email, and need to sign the agreement form.
Face-to-face instruction will take place in the facility room and around NMR spectrometers. During this training, both trainer and trainee are required to obey the Corona Virus guidelines : wearing all required PPE and maintain the 6-feet distance all the time.

After the training, the manager demonstrates to trainee the cleaning and disinfecting practices and leaving the facility room after sanitization.

Spectrometers

Bruker Avance 200 MHz spectrometer

Probes equipped:

Two Bruker 7 mm CP MAS probes.
One Bruker Wide line probe
One Chemagnetics 7.5 mm CP MAS probe.
One Bruker 10 mm liquid probe..

Bruker AM300 MHz spectrometer

The AM 300 Bruker spectrometer was heavily modified to perform a variety of solid state NMR experiments. The system was also updated with the TECMAG.

Probes equipped:
1. One Bruker 7 mm CP MAS probe.
2. One Bruker 4 mm CP MAS probe.
3. One 5 mm Bruker liquid probe.
4. Two 10 mm Bruker liquid probes.

Bruker Avance 500 MHz spectrometer

A 500 MHz spectromter with Bruker UltraShield magnet (the first wide bore 11.7 T magent installed) was installed at Caltech in December of 1998. The spectrometer is equipped with three rf channels and a triple resonace 4 mm probe from Bruker:

One 4mm Triple Resonance probe.
One 4mm Double Resonance Extended VT probe (-120 C - 300 C)
One 7mm CPMAS probe for low gamma nuclei (20 MHz-100 MHz)
One 10 mm solution probe.
One 2 mm probe (Max spinning ~ 50 kHz)

Contact

People in the Facility

Director:
Sonjong Hwang, Ph.D.
Tel: 626-395-2323
Fax: 626-568-8743
e-mail: sonjong@cheme.caltech.edu

Grad Lab Assistant:
Neal Scruggs

Mailing address

Caltech Solid State NMR Facility
Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering
MC 210-41
California Institute of Technology
Pasadena, CA 91125
USA

FY2019 Rates

FY2021 CCE Rate Sheet (Effective 10-1-2020)
*Consulting fees might apply depending on service request (contact the director).

Useful Links

Solid State NMR Facility

Facility Access

Spectrometers

Contact

People in the Facility

Mailing address

FY2019 Rates

Useful Links

Conferences

Vendors

NMR Journals

NMR Related Links

NMR Facilities

World Wide NMR spectroscopy Research Groups