Design and construction of a versatile dual volume heteronuclear double resonance microcoil NMR probe

Improved NMR detection of mass limited samples can be obtained by taking advantage of the mass sensitivity of microcoil NMR, while throughput issues can be addressed using multiple, parallel sample detection coils. We present the design and construction of a double resonance 300-MHz dual volume microcoil NMR probe with thermally etched 440-nL detection volumes and fused silica transfer lines for high-throughput stopped-flow or flow-through sample analysis. Two orthogonal solenoidal detection coils and the novel use of shielded inductors allowed the construction of a probe with negligible radio-frequency cross talk. The probe was resonated at ¹H–²D (upper coil) and ¹H–¹³C (lower coil) frequencies such that it could perform 1D and 2D experiments with active locking frequency. The coils exhibited line widths of 0.8–1.1 Hz with good mass sensitivity for both ¹H and ¹³C NMR detection. ¹³C-directly detected ²D HETCOR spectra of 5% v/v ¹³C labeled acetic acid were obtained in less than 5 min. Demonstration of the probe characteristics as well as applications of the versatile two-coil double resonance probe are discussed.