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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

A nuclear spin-based129Xe and131Xe using optical polarization

Binquan Zhou, Linlin Chen, Guanqun Lei, Wei Quan, Xiaofeng Meng, Jiancheng Fang

Published Oct 8, 2015• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a design for a spin-exchange optical pumping system to produce large quantities of highly polarized 129Xe and 131Xe. Low xenon concentrations in the flowing gas mixture which allow the laser to maintain high Cs polarization. The large spin-exchange rate between Cs and Xe through the long-lived van der Waals molecules at low pressure, combined with a high flow rate, results in large production rates of hyperpolarized xenon. The fast rates make it possible to obtain large nuclear polarizations after several minutes of optical pumping with a laser.At high Xe pressures. According to the theory, the longitudinal spin-elaxation rate 1T1 of Xe in a high-pressure sample containing only Xe and Cs vapor has the simple form is the velocity averaged binary spin-exchange cross section, It is the relaxation rate due to wall collisions and perhaps magnetic field inhomogeneities. Our results complement earlier studies performed at 129Xe pressures of about 20 Torr and 131Xe pressures of about 20 Torr and N2 pressures of 600 Torr . This work is useful for predicting spin-exchange rates between polarized Cs atoms and Xe nuclei.

DOI
10.1117/12.2202830

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We present a design for a spin-exchange optical pumping system to produce large quantities of highly polarized 129Xe and 131Xe. Low xenon concentrations in the flowing gas mixture which allow the laser to maintain high Cs polarization. The large spin-exchange rate between Cs and Xe through the long-lived van der Waals molecules at low pressure, combined with a high flow rate, results in large production rates of hyperpolarized xenon. The fast rates make it possible to obtain large nuclear polarizations after several minutes of optical pumping with a laser.At high Xe pressures. According to the theory, the longitudinal spin-elaxation rate 1T1 of Xe in a high-pressure sample containing only Xe and Cs vapor has the simple form is the velocity averaged binary spin-exchange cross section, It is the relaxation rate due to wall collisions and perhaps magnetic field inhomogeneities. Our results complement earlier studies performed at 129Xe pressures of about 20 Torr and 131Xe pressures of about 20 Torr and N2 pressures of 600 Torr . This work is useful for predicting spin-exchange rates between polarized Cs atoms and Xe nuclei.
We present a design for a spin-exchange optical pumping system to produce large quantities of highly polarized 129Xe. Low xenon concentrations in the flowing gas mixture allow the laser to maintain high Rb polarization. The large spin-exchange rate between Rb and 129Xe through the long-lived van der Waals molecules at low pressure, combined with a high flow rate, results in large production rates of hyperpolarized xenon. We report a maximum polarization of 64% achieved for a 0.3 l/h Xe flow rate, and maximum magnetization output of 6 l/h at 22% polarization. Our findings regarding the polarization dependence on temperature, nitrogen partial pressure, and gas mixture flow velocity are also reported.
Abstract Efficient production of hyperpolarized 129 Xe at clinically relevant output levels remains an important challenge for spin-exchange optical pumping (SEOP). In this work, we report a comparative experimental study of Cs– 129 Xe and Rb– 129 Xe SEOP. The spin-exchange and spin-relaxation rates are measured and separated into binary-collision and van der Waals (vdW) molecular contributions. The resulting parameter set shows that long-lived vdW interactions enhance the intrinsic spin-exchange efficiency within a narrow pressure window, with Cs exhibiting a modest advantage over Rb under comparable conditions. Using these experimentally constrained quantities in a device-level model, we predict that clinically relevant 129 Xe polarization levels and throughput could be achievable at pump powers near 5 W.
We present a comprehensive theory of nuclear spin polarization of 3He{}^{3}\mathrm{He}3He and 129Xe{}^{129}\mathrm{Xe}129Xe gases by spin-exchange collisions with optically pumped alkali-metal vapors. The most important physical processes considered are (1) spin-conserving spin-exchange collisions between like or unlike alkali-metal atoms; (2) spin-destroying collisions of the alkali-metal atoms with each other and with buffer-gas atoms; (3) electron-nuclear spin-exchange collisions between alkali-metal atoms and 3He{}^{3}\mathrm{He}3He or 129Xe{}^{129}\mathrm{Xe}129Xe atoms; (4) spin interactions in van der Waals molecules consisting of a Xe atom bound to an alkali-metal atom; (5) optical pumping by laser photons; (6) spatial diffusion. The static magnetic field is assumed to be small enough that the nuclear spin of the alkali-metal atom is well coupled to the electron spin and the total spin is very nearly a good quantum number. Conditions appropriate for the production of large quantities of spin-polarized 3He{}^{3}\mathrm{He}3He or 129Xe{}^{129}\mathrm{Xe}129Xe gas are assumed, namely, atmospheres of gas pressure and nearly complete quenching of the optically excited alkali-metal atoms by collisions with N2{\mathrm{N}}_{2}N2​ or H2{\mathrm{H}}_{2}H2​ gas. Some of the more important results of this work are as follows: (1) Most of the pumping and relaxation processes are sudden with respect to the nuclear polarization. Consequently, the steady-state population distribution of alkali-metal atoms is well described by a spin temperature, whether the rate of spin-exchange collisions between alkali-metal atoms is large or small compared to the optical pumping rate or the collisional spin-relaxation rates. (2) The population distributions that characterize the response to sudden changes in the intensity of the pumping light are not described by a spin temperature, except in the limit of very rapid spin exchange. (3) Expressions given for the radio-frequency (rf) resonance linewidths and areas can be used to make reliable estimates of the local spin polarization of the alkali-metal atoms. (4) Diffusion effects for these high-pressure conditions are mainly limited to thin layers at the cell surface and at internal resonant surfaces generated by radio-frequency magnetic fields when the static magnetic field has substantial spatial inhomogeneities. The highly localized effects of diffusion at these surfaces are described with closed-form analytic functions instead of the spatial eigenmode expansions that are appropriate for lower-pressure cells.
We present a constructed setup for polarizing 129 Xe noble gas. Hyperpolarized 129 Xe has been obtained via spin exchange with an optically pumped rubidium vapor. Optical pumping is based on polarizing the valence electron of rubidium by the resonant absorption of a circularly polarized laser light. The magnetic field of 30 G was used for obtaining 129 Xe polarization. The apparatus for detecting polarization is a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer. The highest 129 Xe polarization of 54% has been obtained using 60 W circularly polarized laser light with wavelength of 794.7 nm. The measured longitudinal relaxation time of the hyperpolarized 129 Xe was 72.3 minutes.
We report production of hyperpolarized Xe-129 gas via spin-exchange with optically pumped Cs atoms at the D-2 line, achieved at low magnetic field in a flow system and in the absence of nitrogen gas. The nuclear spin polarization of hyperpolarized Xe-129 gas is enhanced by a factor of 10000 compared to that without optical pumping under the same condition, which corresponds to polarization of about 2.66%. Due to the high spin polarization, the radiation damping of hyperpolarized Xe-129 gas has also been observed in the flow system.
The nuclei of gaseous 129Xe^{129}\mathrm{Xe}129Xe atoms are polarized by spin exchange with optically pumped Rb vapor. The Xe gas is subsequently frozen. The nuclear polraizations of up to 25% are largely unaffected by freezing. The spin-lattice relaxation time T1{\mathit{T}}_{1}T1​ was measured as a function of temperature, magnetic field, and isotopic composition. At 77 K and 1800 G, T1{\mathit{T}}_{1}T1​ is limited to about 3 h by a new relaxation mechanism. The potential for accumulating large samples with even higher polarizations makes laser-polarized Xe ice promising for a wide variety of new experiments.