Abstract
It has recently been shown that a bolus of hyperpolarized nuclear spins can yield stimulated emission signals similar in nature to maser signals, potentially enabling new ways of sensing hyperpolarized contrast media, including most notably [1-(13)C]pyruvate that is under evaluation in over 50 clinical trials for metabolic imaging of cancer. The stimulated NMR signal emissions lasting for minutes do not require radio-frequency excitation, offering unprecedented advantages compared to conventional MR sensing. However, creating nuclear spin maser emission is challenging in practice due to stringent fundamental requirements, making practical in vivo applications hardly possible using conventional passive MR detectors. Here, we demonstrate the utility of a wireless NMR maser detector, the quality factor of which was enhanced 22-fold (to 1,670) via parametric pumping. This active-feedback technique breaks the intrinsic fundamental limit of NMR detector circuit quality factor. We show the use of parametric pumping to reduce the threshold requirement for inducing nuclear spin masing at 300 MHz resonance frequency in a preclinical MRI scanner. Indeed, stimulated emission from hyperpolarized protons was obtained under highly unfavorable conditions of low magnetic field homogeneity (T(2)* of 3 ms). Greater gains of the quality factor of the MR detector (up to 1 million) were also demonstrated.