High-resolution nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Advances in instrumentation in this field are leading to new applications in chemistry and biology

The rapid development of NMR spectroscopy has been characterized by a succession of discrete, significant advances in instrumentation, as well as by less dramatic but cumulatively important improvements in instrument performance, experimental techniques, spectral analysis, and theory. Most significant are the advances in magnet technology, which within 13 years increased the available field strengths from 7.04 to 51.7 kilogauss (with corresponding increase in the PMR frequency from 30 to 220 megahertz). Great improvements in spectrometer stability and in the coupling of spectrometers with on-line computers have so improved sensitivity that some nuclei possessing less favorable NMR characteristics can now be studied.