Instrumentation & Equipment

The focus in our group lies on research using NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) spectroscopy. In our NMR facility, which was inaugurated in 2013, three NMR spectrometers are set up to be used for a wide range of tasks.

Our 400 MHz spectrometer (Bruker Avance III HD) is equipped with an autosampler so that a large number of samples can be measured automatically one after the other. Four probes are available for this device, with which 5 or 10 mm samples can be measured. Applications range from high temperature measurements (up to ~480 K) of polymer melts, diffusion measurements of polymer solutions, imaging (via ¹H, ¹⁹F or ²H) to the measurement of general NMR data sets (including ¹H decoupled ¹⁹F spectroscopy and multidimensional spectra).

Our 600 MHz instrument (Bruker Avance III) is equipped with a triple resonance broadband inverse probe (TBI; ¹H/³¹P, BB/²H) as default, which can be used to measure a wide range of homo- and heteronuclear experiments or diffusion of small molecules in a temperature range between 240 K and 350 K, among other things. A nitrogen evaporator is also available for the device, so that low-temperature measurements down to 180 K can be carried out. Furthermore, an HR-MAS probe (¹H, ¹³C, ²H) is available for this spectrometer, which can be used to perform measurements of anisotropic highly viscous gels, liquid crystalline phases and (to a limited degree) solids.

The 700 MHz spectrometer (Bruker Avance III HD) is equipped with a helium-cooled cryoprobe (quadruple resonance inverse probe; ¹H/¹⁹F, ³¹P/¹³C/¹⁵N/²H), with a significantly increased sensitivity for measurements on samples with low concentrations or higher-dimensional homo- and heteronuclear correlation experiments.

Aside from internal use, other scientists may also be granted access to the NMR spectrometers. Details are governed by the Nutzungsordnung (opens in new tab) (available only in German).