Developed to address the scientific requirements for increased sensitivity and higher resolution in order to study larger proteins, functional disorder and macromolecular complexes, Bruker has successfully delivered the world's first stable and homogeneous standard-bore Ascend™ 1.2 GHz NMR magnet.
For many years, high-resolution NMR was limited to a magnetic field of 23.5 Tesla, equivalent to a 1H resonance frequency of 1.0 GHz. This limit was set by the physical properties of metallic, low-temperature superconductors (LTS), and it was first reached in 2009 with an Avance® 1000 spectrometer at the Ultra-High Field NMR Center in Lyon, France.
High-temperature superconductors (HTS), first discovered in the 1980s, open the door towards even higher magnetic fields at low temperatures, but considerable challenges in YBCO HTS tape manufacturing and in superconducting magnet technology made further UHF progress daunting until recently.
Bruker's unique GHz-Class NMR magnets utilize a novel hybrid design with advanced high-temperature superconductor (HTS) in the inner sections and low-temperature superconductor (LTS) in the outer sections of the magnet. The Ascend 1.2 GHz is a stable, standard-bore (54 mm) magnet with homogeneity similar to Bruker's existing 1.0 GHz and 1.1 GHz magnets for high-resolution NMR. The 1.2 GHz spectrometers are available with different ultra-high field probes, including CryoProbes for solution-state NMR to fast-spinning MAS solid-state NMR probes.