ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) in materials was first observed in 1946 independently by F. Bloch at Stanford University and E. Purcell at Harvard University, for which they were both awarded the 1952 Nobel prize in Physics [6.1,6.2,6.3]. In the period between 1950 and 1970, NMR was developed further by the introduction of the Fourier transformation by R. Ernst, 1966 [6.4], and by the extension of the NMR spectrum to more than one frequency coordinate, called multidimensional NMR [6.5]. In 1973, P. Mansfeld and P. Grannell and independently P. Lauterbur, obtained the first magnetic resonance images using linear gradient fields (Lauterbur and Mansfeld were awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Medicine) [6.6,6.7]. The first commercial pulse NMR spectrometers became available in the early 1970s. Advances in laboratory instrumentation, radiofrequency electronics, digital electronics, and computer capabilities, coupled with pulse techniques and Fourier transformation, have greatly enhanced the sensitivity of the NMR technique. It is now a routine procedure to obtain very high quality NMR spectra in few minutes using only a few hundred micrograms of sample. Physicists are still developing magnetic resonance to exploit a range of new applications on materials.
