Micro-Scale Inductively Coupled Radiofrequency Resonators on Fluidic Platforms for Wireless Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy

Anja Zass¹, Kailiang Wang¹, Marcel Utz¹

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is an ideal tool for metabolomics. On microfluidic platforms, small pickup coils are needed for good sensitivity. Usually, this requires electrical connections between chip and spectrometer. Micro-scale inductively coupled rf resonators enable the wireless investigation of small volumes in the NMR. The approach has the advantage of focussing the sensitivity and rf power on the sample, without the need for connections to the spectrometer. Preceding research demonstrated that inductively coupled coils can rival the performance of directly connected ones. We present planar inductively coupled, self-resonant microcoils that showed promising resolution and sensitivity on first tests.