Carl Michal

Carl's group studies biological, organic and inorganic materials, using solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) as the primary tool.
The current projects include:

• Relaxation and Magnetization transfer in brain tissue: We use NMR to probe the fundamental physics of the nuclear spin interactions relevant for advanced MRI techniques used to characterize myelin in white matter brain tissue.
• Biological materials: We are working with collaborators to understand thermal, optical, and mechanical properties of nano-crystalline cellulose, a promising renewable nanomaterial.
• Conductive ionic polymer gel devices:  We are working with collaborators to make and characterize devices based on polymer gels. We use a variety of NMR methods to measure transport and other properties of these materials
• Energy Storage Materials: We use NMR to probe the transport of ions in candidate polymer materials for battery and supercapacitor electrodes and solid electrolytes.
• NMR methodology/instrumentation. We develop NMR instrumentation and techniques. Current instrumentation focus is on the use of low-cost software defined radio technology for NMR. Technique development spans all of the projects in lab. One particular focus is on the development of stochastic NMR methods to make stochastic NMR more attractive for widespread use. We have recently developed methods to extend the receiver bandwidth of stochastically excited NMR, and methods to incorporate solvent suppression.