Substituted Fullerenes for Enhanced Optical Nuclear Hyperpolarization in Random Orientations

Keita Sakamoto, Katsuki Miyokawa, Tomoyuki Hamachi, Haoxuan Zhang, Jiarui Song, Kenichiro Tateishi, Tomohiro Uesaka, Hiroshi Imahori, Yasuhiro Kobori, Yuki Kurashige () and Nobuhiro Yanai ()
Additional contact information
Keita Sakamoto: The University of Tokyo, Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science
Katsuki Miyokawa: Kyoto University, Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science
Tomoyuki Hamachi: The University of Tokyo, Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science
Haoxuan Zhang: Kyoto University, Department of Molecular Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering
Jiarui Song: Kyushu University, Department of Applied Chemistry, Graduate School of Engineering
Kenichiro Tateishi: Pioneering Research Institute, RIKEN, RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science
Tomohiro Uesaka: Pioneering Research Institute, RIKEN, RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science
Hiroshi Imahori: Kyoto University, Department of Molecular Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering
Yasuhiro Kobori: Molecular Photoscience Research Center
Yuki Kurashige: Kyoto University, Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science
Nobuhiro Yanai: The University of Tokyo, Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science

Nature Communications, 2025, vol. 16, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Polarized electron spins in photoexcited triplet states enable dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) to enhance magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) sensitivity. For a practical nuclear polarization of 10%, single crystals must be precisely oriented in a magnetic field to generate narrow electron spin resonance lines, which is not appropriate for actual medical applications. Here, substituted fullerenes as triplet polarizing agents enable 1H polarizations above 10%, even for random molecular orientations. While they have not been used as polarizing agents for triplet-DNP because of electron spin relaxation via pseudo-rotation, we overcome this by chemical modification of two sites on C60 fullerenes. Symmetry considerations reveal fullerenes that avoided pseudo-rotations. Di-substituted fullerenes are ideal polarizing agents with sharp linewidths and long relaxation times that enabled 14.2% 1H polarization in randomly oriented orientations. Optimized polarizing agents represent a promising approach for ultra-sensitive MRI medical diagnostics without the need for DNP under cryogenic temperatures and severe orientation control.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-66211-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:16:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-025-66211-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-66211-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().